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Show: UKIP! The Musical
Society: Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Venue: theSpace@Surgeons Hall (Venue 53)
Credits: Hell Bent Theatre Company
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 07/08/2015
UKIP! The Musical
Chris Abbott | 07 Aug 2015 19:29pm
It’s marketing that matters at Edinburgh, and the title of your show has to shine out and attract among the more than three thousand on offer. If the award for title most likely to attract for 2015 should perhaps go to “Nudity, Free Beer, Good for Kids” then the runner-up at least should be UKIP! The Musical showing at the Space at Surgeon’s Hall for most of August.
Most people in the queue (you have to queue for everything at the Fringe) assumed this would be satire not hagiography, and indeed the press release from Hell Bent Theatre Company promises a “rollicking satirical swipe.” What the increasingly perplexed audience were treated to, however, was a curiously old-fashioned piece from writer Cath Day and director Jessica Williams that seemed like an amalgam of Salad Days and G&S.
Very traditional in form, and quite derivative in its use of plot devices like advisory ghosts, this was only mildly satirical and increasingly curious in tone, with random lyrics like “Tea and cakes, Oxbow lakes.” Jolly song after song dealt with issues like racism in a curiously dated way; watching an all-white cast sing a song about Bongo Bongo Land was not just embarrassing but also felt like being time-warped to 1975. Songs with titles like Europa You Raped Her and a frankly bizarre evocation of a gay nightclub left many in the audience gazing in disbelief or heading for the exits.
The show briefly found its feet with a broader depiction of the main party leaders but soon returned to a strange mix of the twee and the vulgar. Rather than any kind of denunciation of Farage, the underlying message of the show (whether intended or not) seemed to be that he was a good man led astray who will one day come back to save the country.
The hard-working cast did their best, with strong performances in lead roles from the actors playing Nigel Farage and his wife, although no cast list was available on the press release, at the venue or on the company website so they will have to remain nameless.
The playing space was large but the cast of eleven often masked the view of those audience members sitting on the sides; thrust staging requires much more attention to be paid to blocking.
This was a talented company with some good singers and others who could create character through voice quite effectively; let’s hope Edinburgh will see them in future shows which are less uncertain in tone and perplexing in intention.
- : admin
- : 07/08/2015