Classical Greek tragedy evolved in incremental stages. Aeschylus introduced the second actor; Sophocles added a third; Euripides enhanced the role of the chorus; and Lip Service brought in audience participation.
Whenever the literary spoof specialists Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding find themselves stuck for a plot development to include in their "Greek-style tragedy", they invite the audience to shout something out. This explains how, in the account of the 10-year siege of Troy according to the little-known scribe Hypotenuse, the great Menelaus was respected and feared for his catchphrase: "Come and sit down."
To bring the show to its climax, the duo request a willing sacrificial victim to come up and help them out on stage. Surprisingly, people will queue up to be put to the sword by Lip Service, though thankfully their wit proves more pointed than their sacrificial knife. Although the great tragedians were strong on periphrasis, catharsis and rhetoric, they were rather short on sight gags, and Lip Service work hard to make up the deficiency.
Hector's House is the duo's most lavish spectacle to date - they must have spent at least a fiver on the props and costumes. And when it comes to launching 1,000 ships, it is a stroke of genius to have the audience fold the fleet out of sheets of paper during the interval.
For this show, Fox and Ryding have enlisted the services of the fine actor Nick Lumley, who appears as Agamemnon, Zeus and the kebab-delivery bloke. He does a sterling job of being ritually humiliated by Fox and Ryding in a three-way dynamic that is derived less from Aeschylus than from Morecambe and Wise.
Hector's House is longer than the average Lip Service skit; after all, a 10-year siege is a lot to get through. But the direction by Gwenda Hughes and Mark Chatterton ensures that the energy never flags. Classicists will cringe, but Lip Service do not care. It's all Greek to them anyway.
· At the Manchester Library Theatre (0161-236 7110) from September 3-14, then touring.
