Demeter

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics

Natalie tells the powerful and painful story of Demeter's fight to get justice for her daughter Persephone.

Hades conspires with his siblings Zeus and Gaia to abduct Persephone and force her to live with him in the underworld as his wife. Many versions of this story are sanitized for children but the original is not. It is clear that Persephone is tricked and trafficked, that she hates and fears Hades and never becomes accustomed to life among the dead. And that her mother Demeter is furious and grief-stricken.

The light is gone from Demeter's life and consequently from the world: crops fail and the people starve. It's only now that Zeus takes note of her pleas to get Persephone back. He doesn't really care about the people but he misses their gifts and praise.

In a tour de force solo performance recorded at the Hay festival, Natalie reclaims the goddess' story for our times. A story of a mother's love and fury that speaks painfully to us across millennia.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery