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Vulvarine

VULVARINE

★★★★★

VAULT Festival 2019

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Vulvarine

Vulvarine

The Vaults

Reviewed – 14th March 2019

★★★★★

 

“It’s a rare treat to find musical comedies on the fringe circuit that are as technically good as they are funny”

 

Nothing ever happens in High Wycombe. Bryony Buckle spends her days living alone with her cat Elton, working a monotonous office job with her friend Poppy, and crushing on her colleague Orson. But one day, the combination of a hormone injection from her doctor, and being struck by lightning on her way home, results in Bryony waking up with superpowers! She decides to use them for good: Wherever men are arseholes, Vulvarine is there to stop them. But it isn’t long before she’s challenged by an evil scientist: The Mansplainer. Can Vulvarine and her friends defeat him?

Fat Rascal Theatre continue to set the bar for off-West End musicals. I was lucky enough to catch their Beauty and the Beast: A Musical Parody back in November at The King’s Head, and arrived at VAULT Festival last night with impossibly high expectations. Their Beauty and the Beast was the most fun I’d had at a show in ages; it was a question whether they’d be able to match their own standard. But without doubt, Fat Rascal have done it again. Vulvarine is a triumph of musical theatre.

A powerhouse of a show, Vulvarine is an astoundingly clever and absolutely hilarious musical parody of the superhero genre. It’s also feminism at its silliest and most entertaining. West-End voices belt out smart, witty lyrics (Robyn Grant, Daniel Elliot) to fun, highly accomplished music (James Ringer-Beck). The performers are superb. Their comedy is faultless, their parody expert.

Self-aware humour is one of Fat Rascal’s own superpowers. With a somewhat lower budget than the typical Marvel film, they create a brilliantly funny aesthetic with cheap wigs, comically fast costume changes, flimsy props, and total mockery of ‘effects’ (a handheld vacuum in reverse is the wind as Vulvarine ‘flies through the air’). The show is laugh-out-loud from start to finish. The audience really almost never stops laughing. There ought to be a warning for anyone prone to hysterical fits; some people lost it completely.

Allie Munro is equally lovable and fierce as Bryony/Vulvarine. Jamie Mawson is delightful as the ‘pretty’ love interest, Orson (a nice gender swap from typical Marvel plotlines). Steffan Rizzi is great as Sonya, and sings a particularly powerful solo – “Boys Will Be Boys” – which is done with surprising heart and skill. Robyn Grant and Katie Wells slay their multi-rolling performances. All of the voices in this show belong on much larger stages. It’s a rare treat to find musical comedies on the fringe circuit that are as technically good as they are funny.

Fat Rascal Theatre are at the top of their game. An undeniable hit, Vulvarine is the latest addition to their list of victories. The show is shamelessly silly fun, created by powerfully talented people. You’ll be hard-pressed to spend a more enjoyable hour and fifteen minutes in a theatre.

 

Reviewed by Addison Waite

Photography courtesy Fat Rascal Theatre

 

Vault Festival 2019

Vulvarine

Part of VAULT Festival 2019

 

Also by Fat Rascal Theatre:
Beauty and the Beast: A Musical Parody | ★★★★★ | King’s Head Theatre | November 2018

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

 

The Wrong Ffion Jones

THE WRONG FFION JONES

★★★★★

VAULT Festival 2019

Reviews, , , , , , , ,

he Wrong Ffion Jones

The Wrong Ffion Jones

The Vaults

Reviewed – 20th February 2019

★★★★★

 

“she conjures up three-dimensional scenarios with a winning blend of physical agility and comic flair”

 

What does it mean to be Welsh? And what does it mean to be Welsh when everything you know and love about Wales is under threat? These are the questions asked by Ffion Jones, playing herself in a hilarious one-woman show at the VAULT Festival.

In a dystopian near-future, Wales has become ‘Walesland’ – a stifling theme park of itself cynically controlled by tycoons Bevan, Bevan, Bevan and Co. (The choice of name is presumably a cheeky nod to Rhys Bevan, the show’s director). Jones works as a tour guide and finds herself faced with a horrible moral dilemma when the Bevans offer her an opportunity that puts her trade – and that of her colleagues – at risk. To complicate matters further, she is becoming the face of a rebellion against their corporate values. Will she abandon her principles? Or will she put Wales before her own interests and lead the revolution?

In telling the story, Ffion brilliantly embodies its various characters, flitting between them with remarkable wit and invention. It’s quite some feat to hold up both ends of a conversation, using different voices and poised in different positions to bring alive diverse personalities, but she conjures up three-dimensional scenarios with a winning blend of physical agility and comic flair.

The humour is surreal and sophisticated. While there are inevitably jokes about Tom Jones, Richard Burton and sheep, they are never obvious. With a lightness of touch that prevents it ever becoming worthy or self-important, the show goes way further than mere wisecracks to make profound observations about capitalism and national pride. The clever use of projected home-video footage of Ffion as a young child adds emotional depth and introduces some visual variety. There’s real subtlety at work here, making it a refreshing and stimulating fifty-five minutes.

Ffion oozes charm, from the moment she steps on the stage waving a leek to seeming completely taken aback at the well-deserved standing ovation at the end. The quick-wittedness of her delivery – possibly honed through stand-up or improv comedy – is astonishing. In fact, if there’s a criticism it’s that it’s occasionally a little too fast. There’s so much going on, so rapidly, that you can’t always catch every visual or verbal gag. This makes it tricky to keep up with certain moments in the narrative. When she slows things down a little, such as for her amusing and oddly touching cover version of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler, you can really savour the dazzling range of her gifts.

The staging is minimal, with just three chairs, a microphone stand and a screen. But nothing else is needed: Ffion Jones creates an entire world.

 

Reviewed by Stephen Fall

Photography by  Pete Le May

 

Vault Festival 2019

The Wrong Ffion Jones

Part of VAULT Festival 2019

 

 

 

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