Rating: ★★★
Venue: Upstairs at the Gatehouse
A simple bedtime story swirls into a surreal tale of four flawed souls stuck in purgatory—a celestial bathroom—in this irreverent yet warm-hearted new musical with songs by German pop-rock star Tobias Künzel (Die Prinzen) and Mark Underwood.
With limited spots in the afterlife, St. Peter is barely keeping his head above water. As each soul pleads their case, ‘help’ arrives in the form of (puppet) Elvis and, you guessed it, (puppet) former leader of the German Democratic Republic, Erich Honecker.
A New Loo Review:
Any show in which the lead actor (Mark Underwood) is also a composer and lyricist on the piece automatically screams fringe. The same goes for the drummer's contributions to the script and score (Tobias Künzel). So, although this is not advertised as such, it only feels right to review it as one - especially with Fringe season just around the corner.
This is the basis on which I have awarded it 3 stars, as it really isn’t a ‘good’ show. But they know that, and that’s why it’s funny. The opening number describes the structure of the show being similar to that of a fever dream, while also stating that the cast can't sing so ‘don’t expect too much’. While their self-awareness is admirable, it does call into question… well, why do it then? Reading the programme doesn’t particularly provide an answer to this either - other than for the creators' own enjoyment.
As stated in scene one, the direction from Blair Anderson includes some ‘questionable decisions’ including a character with what I think was supposed to be a Scottish accent that made this Glaswegian girl squirm.
Not all vocal aspects, however, were disappointing. Protagonist ‘Lou’ (sounds like ‘loo’ get it?) played by Sarah Louise Hughes was a great addition and a brilliant voice actress, providing the dialogue and songs for a huge array of characters.
Equally as impressive were the Spitting-Image-like puppets by Louise Nowitzki, half of which are objects, and the other 50% are people! 3 actors stay (supposedly) silent the entire time, and simply lip sync to the audio - although this was often a little messy.
As they say in their own finale number ‘a standing ovation would be too far’ and, while Death On The Throne doesn't completely go to shit, it is still pretty crappy.
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