Just a quick one for this Sunday and I wasn’t actually going to write about this one because the tour is about to end, and I wasn’t sure whether there was any point in writing about it if you couldn’t go and see it – but in exciting news, it’s available on streaming, so I can write about it after all!
So this is a (self confessed) loose adaptation of HG Well’s sci fi classic The Time Machine. And in case you couldn’t tell from the trailer, it’s a comedy. And boy is it comic. It’s bonkers and really quite meta. And actually on the night that we saw it even more meta than usual with the addition of an understudy – complete with script in hand – that I still wasn’t sure if it was part of the plot until I went and googled at half time and found the reviews which clearly stated that it wasn’t normal! But it tells you a little bit about the nature of the thing that I wasn’t sure whether it was a fake-out or not*.
Anyway, if you like your casts small, your productions lo-fi and for both of those things to be a feature in the actual show, then this is great fun. I laughed a lot. Not Mischief Theatre or Spymonkey levels of laughter (where your sides actually ache), but quite a lot. Definitely more than I’ve laughed at a lot of other comedies over the last couple of years. Some of that is the writing, but a lot of it is the performers – who throw themselves at it body and soul – as I’ve mentioned, the line between reality and acting is very blurry here and that’s a good performance thing more than anything else I think.
And if still you don’t believe me that it’s good, it’s actually got an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate theatre this year. I haven’t seen any of the other nominees, so I’m rooting for this one. And if it does win, maybe it’ll get some more tour dates. In the meantime, you can rent it via Original Theatre’s website and take a look for yourself. It took a bit of digging about on the website, but it’s £5.99 for a 48 rental, or £8.99 for a month’s access to all their shows, which includes the Adrian Lukis Being Mr Wickham which I keep hearing good things about, and several interesting looking plays.
Have a great Sunday everyone.
*Unlike at Spymonkey where I knew that Stephan was really dead, and Petra genuinely in Vegas, which the people around us weren’t convinced about at the interval and were hoping they’d turn up in the second half!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 