London.
BIG BROTHER BLKITZKRIEG
by Hew Rous Eyre & Max Elton.
Kings Head Theatre 115 Upper Street Islington N1 1QN To 30 January 2016.
Mon-Sat 9pm.
Runs 1hr 15min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7226 8561.
www.kingsheadtheatre.com
Review: William Russell 16 January.
Puerile goings on in the Big Brother Room.
A success apparently on the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, this response to celebrity worship and anti-politics, whatever they may be, has been re-developed by its creators. They could have found better ways of passing their time.
To be fair, the audience laughed quite a lot, but mocking the horrors of Big Brother, a reality show on its death bed for ages, is easy. The gimmick is to install Hitler in the house. He has fallen asleep at some point when he aspired to be an artist and is puzzled by his new surroundings, but learns a thing or two about manipulating people; the end is in sight right from the start. Everyone becomes a Fascist.
The players all rise to the occasion – there’d nothing wrong with the performances. Stephen Chance makes a suitably puzzled and eventually dangerous Hitler, there is a nicely acerbic performance from Jenny Johns as the obligatory occupant slumming it, Neil Summerville camps it up something rotten as the equally obligatory gay, Kit Loyd is nicely gauche as M-Cat, the obligatory teenage simpleton.
Hannah Douglas as a lady of fashionably unsure sexuality copes with an impossible role as does Tracey Ann Wood who, of course, has to be Jewish to upset Hitler.
It is said that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Sometimes what happens on the Edinburgh fringe should stay there too. This has absolutely nothing to say about the dangers of the far right and as a satire on Big Brother, dancing on someone’s grave is not really a very rewarding thing to do.
Hitler: Stephen Chance.
Charlie: Hannah Douglas.
Lucy: Jenny Johns.
M-Cat: Kit Loyd.
Felix: Neil Summerville.
Rachel: Tracey Ann Wood.
Big Brother: George Smith.
Directors: Hew Rouse Eyre, Max Elton.
Designer/Costume: Allegra Fitzherbert.
2016-01-17 16:25:50
