Will Young stars in musical podcast Vergil! A Mythological Musical

Audible has released Vergil! A Mythological Musical written by best-selling author Maria Dahvana Headle.

It’s a modern, musical retelling of The Aeneid, the epic poem that tells the renowned story of Aeneas, who fled the fall of Troy and discovered Rome.

The musical features Will Young as Vergil, Claudia Kariuki as Sulpicia, Alice Fearn as Julia, Le Gateau Chocolate as Oppius, and Divina de Campo as The Sibyl.

Set in 19BC Greece, this new Audible Original follows the journey of Vergil, a renowned poet struggling with a severe case of writer’s block.

This musical version of Vergil’s life is as epically comedic as it is tragic, as the cast rap and sing their way through a retelling of ancient-Roman history. The podcast reshapes the narrative of The Aeneid, presenting Rome’s foundational poem as the tale of two writers on a transformative quest to change the world.

Author Maria Dahvana Headley said: “I love working with the giant stories of the past and bringing them into the present.

“The Aeneid is nearly 10,000 lines of poetry, written two thousand years ago, yet it’s all still very relevant.

“For Audible, I braided the story of Vergil’s epic writer’s block with the story inside his poem, and ended up with a musical full of adventure, pirates, giant queer love affairs, and enormous battles.

“It’s not every day a person gets to write a 450-page epic and have it turn into something like this!”

Vergil! A Mythological Musical is available exclusively from Audible now.