HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

Arcola Theatre

★★★★

“Although lacking the traditional sleigh bells and Santa, it does have sufficient nostalgia, silliness and giggles to fill a panto-shaped hole”

In case you’re wondering, “Hold on to your butts” is a line from Samuel L Jackson as he is about to reboot the computer systems of Jurassic Park in the 1993 ground-breaking monster flick.

It’s a terrible title for a fun evening but, I suppose, theatre company Recent Cutbacks can’t stick “Jurassic Park” anywhere near the poster for legal reasons.

But the copyright holders need not fear for their intellectual property. It’s in safe hands. This madcap shot-for-shot re-creation of the mega-dinosaur smash is made by people who adore the movie. And love movie-making.

It’s 10 years since this slick whistlestop tribute opened in New York City, later wowing crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe and now setting up at the Arcola under the direction of Kristin McCarthy Parker. Although lacking the traditional sleigh bells and Santa, it does have sufficient nostalgia, silliness and giggles to fill a panto-shaped hole.

This production takes you back. Not just to Steven Spielberg’s genius film, but to your garage, or garden, or park. Where on a rainy Sunday, with nothing else to do and the wifi down, you and your mates stumble upon a cardboard box from Tesco which once held pineapples. The box becomes everything – castle, racing car, majestic pirate ship scything the seven seas…

Here, two performers and a sound artist perform a similar feat of ingenuity and imagination in this lo-fi, charming and very funny evocation of the original.

What’s that you say? A herd of serene brachiosaurus sweeping across the plains of Isla Nublar? Here you go. A mosquito trapped in a piece of amber? A barley sugar will suffice, no?

Performers Jack Baldwin and Laurence Pears tread the fine line between slavish adoration of the original and good-natured fanboy parody. On the sidelines, but equally a star, is foley artist Charlie Ives recreating T-Rex roars, rainstorms, computer beeps, creaking branches and everything else that helps make the fun funnier.

The humour is often of the Airplane! variety – aforementioned (pre-Pulp Fiction) Samuel L Jackson’s growing smoking habit an example – and much of the joy is in the anticipation, figuring out how two men and some props retrieved from a trash can are going to make a car fall through a tree, or create the tension of a raptor hunt. And there’s much humour to be mined in the script too – such as Jeff Goldblum’s wry “chaotician” delivering his memorable brow-knitted cod-philosophies studded with Pinteresque ‘umms’ and pauses. Or that perky and patronising strand of DNA explaining how cloning works.

It helps to know something about the film because the sheer challenge of miniaturisation does lend itself to some confusion, but the iconic scenes are all there as anchors – the ripples on the cup of water, T-Rex going to town on a toilet-bound Donald Gennaro, probing a big pile of dino-poop, sweaty Wayne Knight, girlie Laura Dern…

This is the perfect night for anyone who’s ever seen a stack of cone party hats and thought – three of them, artfully placed – there’s my triceratops!

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 13th December 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at this venue:

DISTANT MEMORIES OF THE NEAR FUTURE | ★★★ | November 2024

THE BAND BACK TOGETHER | ★★★★ | September 2024

MR PUNCH AT THE OPERA | ★★★ | August 2024

FABULOUS CREATURES | ★★★ | May 2024

THE BOOK OF GRACE | ★★★★★ | May 2024

LIFE WITH OSCAR | ★★★ | April 2024

WHEN YOU PASS OVER MY TOMB | ★★★★★ | February 2024

SPUTNIK SWEETHEART | ★★★ | October 2023

GENTLEMEN | ★★★★ | October 2023

THE BRIEF LIFE & MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF BORIS III, KING OF BULGARIA | ★★★★★ | September 2023

THE WETSUITMAN | ★★★ | August 2023

UNION | ★★★ | July 2023

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

We’re now on BLUESKY – click to visit and follow

★★★★

“it’s wittier and more playful, equal parts cheerful and chilling.”

This sizzling one woman show adapted from Eliza Clark’s acclaimed novel is provocative and powerful and deeply sinister.

The play follows Irina (Aimée Kelly), a Newcastle based fetish photographer who is exploring the subversion of the male gaze in her work. After a London gallery requests something more hardcore, her work becomes increasingly violent. She begins blurring lines of consent, and increasingly of reality.

We are immersed into the story from the off. The audience are greeted with business cards, the curtain has projections of gallery description labels, we have been invited to an exhibition opening. Peter Butler’s set design sees the stage left bare, except for one stool and one thin gauze screen. And one performer. Sara Joyce’s simple and intimate direction works strikingly well throughout, a particular moment stands out where Kelly sits down on the edge of the stage, swinging her legs into the stalls, and addressing the audience directly and frankly.

Gillian Greer’s adaptation is direct and sparse. The story has been streamlined, and simplified, which works well. It does lose some of the claustrophobic skin crawling horror of the novel. Instead, it’s wittier and more playful, equal parts cheerful and chilling.

Joyce’s direction sees a mix of live performance with video elements designed by Hayley Egan. This allows Joyce to play with time and space, but also employs effects to startle and discomfort the audience.

“This is the kind of urgent, provocative theatre that Soho Theatre does best”

Kelly’s performance is compelling and intense. She multi-roles, throwing herself into every character with passion and focus. She is also heavily pregnant, something which is rare to see on stage, but is an important step in the fight for pregnant actors’ rights. It is a physical performance, and one which explores the body and sex, and it’s fascinating how quickly we forget her pregnancy, and focus on the performance. It is a really impressive feat.

The sound (Tom Foskett-Barnes) and lighting (Christopher Nairne) designs are contemporary and raw. Playing into the exploration of photography and visual mediums there is multimedia – projections of long exposure photography, layered film, letters, flashing images, words and text messages. Flickering lights, pulsing beats, prolonged projections of brightly coloured screens – all of these combine to build audience discomfort, along with the startling subject matter.

Parts of the play feels a little literal, a bit on the nose. Everything does tie up but some moments are a bit disjointed, maybe a little rushed. While the messaging of the play is perhaps too spelled out, the ideas are fascinating. How far must Irina go to be taken seriously as a threat?

This is the kind of urgent, provocative theatre that Soho Theatre does best. The adaptation feels as fresh and almost as shocking as the novel, while also being funny.

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

Arcola Theatre

★★★★

“Although lacking the traditional sleigh bells and Santa, it does have sufficient nostalgia, silliness and giggles to fill a panto-shaped hole”

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 13th December 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

BOY PARTS at Soho Theatre

★★★★

“it’s wittier and more playful, equal parts cheerful and chilling.”

“This is the kind of urgent, provocative theatre that Soho Theatre does best”

BOY PARTS at Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd October 2023

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Joe Twigg

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Boy Parts

Boy Parts