King's Head Theatre Archives - Page 18 of 51

Vulvarine

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed – 13th June 2019

★★★★★

“Bryony Buckle may be ‘astoundingly average’ but Vulvarine’s cast and direction are anything but”

Vulvarine: A New Musical is a superhero comic musical parody which tells the story of Bryony Buckle (Allie Munro), a young woman who lives an exceedingly ordinary life in the uneventful town of High Wycombe. Bryony checks tax codes by day and sips red wine with her cat Elton (Robyn Grant) by night. That is, however, before she is transformed into the superhero Vulvarine following a hormone injection at the doctor’s and a convenient lightning strike.

Following the discovery of an error in the tampon tax, Vulvarine, her best friend Poppy (Katie Wells) and her pretty boy love interest Orson Bloom (Jamie Mawson) must take on the misogynistic Mansplainer (Robyn Grant) and his wife Sonya (Steffan Rizzi) before women in High Wycombe and beyond are made subservient by his Hormone-a-beam.

Through Vulvarine: A New Musical, Artistic Director Robyn Grant aims to highlight the extensive use of hormonal medication amongst women. Grant herself was on the contraceptive pill for period pain from the age of fourteen and it was only ten years later that she became aware of its terrifying side effects. With the rising wave of abortion restrictions in America, Grant hopes Vulvarine will inspire women to take control of their own bodies and revolt against those who wish to restrict womankind. Despite these powerful themes, Vulvarine: A New Musical never takes itself too seriously and succeeds in engaging its audience with these important topics in a fun and light-hearted way.

Vulvarine: A New Musical is exceedingly funny. The cast take a little while to warm up, but the show is soon in full swing with a laugh a minute. The dialogue is quick and hyperaware of the superhero clichés it draws on. Instances of actors breaking the fourth wall such as when a stagehand lifts a chair to demonstrate Vulvarine’s super-strength before looking at the audience, going ‘oops!’ and running off stage are wonderfully humorous additions.

The stage consists of a simple cardboard townscape for most of the show but becomes more elaborate towards the performance’s end with the incorporation of a (cardboard) control panel and shark tank when the protagonists infiltrate Mansplainer’s lair. The props (Hugh Purves) are a lot of fun and include a plastic pigeon on a stick which transports Bryony and Poppy to a park bench and a muppet-style puppet acting as Elton the Cat. At times the stage does seem rather crowded, but the cast work well with the space they have.

Grant shines throughout and Munro is a strong lead. Wells, Mawson and Rizzi all provided excellent support with the former electrifying the stage with the solo ‘Boys will be Boys’. Other notable songs are the Avenue Q-esque ‘Licking My Anus’ performed by Elton the Cat and ‘Who’s that Girl’ performed by both Bryony and Poppy and nicely threaded throughout the musical in multiple reprises. Bryony Buckle may be ‘astoundingly average’ but Vulvarine’s cast and direction are anything but.

Reviewed by Flora Doble

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

Vulvarine

King’s Head Theatre until 6th July then UK Tour continues

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Outlying Islands | ★★★★ | January 2019

Timpson: The Musical | ★★★ | February 2019

The Crown Dual | ★★★★ | March 2019

Undetectable | ★★★★ | March 2019

Awkward Conversations With Animals … | ★★★★ | April 2019

HMS Pinafore | ★★★★ | April 2019

Coral Browne: This F***Ing Lady! | ★★ | May 2019

This Island’s Mine | ★★★★★ | May 2019

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

★★

“direly underwritten and shallow”

I can safely say that Coral Browne: This F***ing Lady! is the only play I’ve seen where the performer has apologised directly afterwards. In this case it was for how under-rehearsed the show was, but Prospect Productions’ aim to shine a light on the now-sidelined titular Australian actress unfortunately suffers from greater issues than that.

Set in her home towards the end of her life, the play sees Browne (Amanda Muggleton) recount her illustrious career throughout the mid-1900s to the audience, from Australia to London to America, as well as her love life, from other women’s husbands, to her own, and back to others’. It’s never particularly clear exactly what Maureen Sherlock’s script wants to draw attention to, however, and it often feels as though the audience are just watching a staging of a Wikipedia page for all the insight it provides into who Browne was as a person. There are occasional moments of depth, such as the loss of her husband, her fraught relationship with her mother, and her exasperation at the roles men write for women, but these are fleeting, instead playing second fiddle to her reeling off which productions she’s been in, and her penchant for swearing (which gets old very fast). In fact, much of what little personality we are shown doesn’t cast her in a favourable light, as she turns her nose up at the working class and derides the idea of assisting with the war effort, which does little to make Browne a likeable character.

Muggleton’s portrayal of Browne only adds to the superficiality of the script by depicting her as very artificial – it feels like we’re just seeing a performance of Browne’s public persona rather than a three dimensional human being. Muggleton also feels confined by the cramped and cluttered stage, as well as Sherlock’s perfunctory direction. Despite this, Muggleton does manage to bring a heft of charisma and energy to the role, although this was dampened on a number of occasions by her having to ask for prompts; you can be sure that if the performer isn’t able to follow the story, then the audience will definitely struggle to too.

I am always sympathetic to first night mishaps with shows but Coral Browne felt so severely under-rehearsed that it came across as amateurish – such that it necessitated an apology. The true mishaps of this production though are that it is direly underwritten and shallow.

Reviewed by Tom Francis

Photography courtesy Prospect Productions

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed – 13th June 2019

★★★★★

“Bryony Buckle may be ‘astoundingly average’ but Vulvarine’s cast and direction are anything but”

Reviewed by Flora Doble

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

Vulvarine

King’s Head Theatre until 6th July then UK Tour continues

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed – 20th May 2019

★★

“direly underwritten and shallow”

I am always sympathetic to first night mishaps with shows but Coral Browne felt so severely under-rehearsed that it came across as amateurish – such that it necessitated an apology. The true mishaps of this production though are that it is direly underwritten and shallow.

Reviewed by Tom Francis

Photography courtesy Prospect Productions

Coral Browne: This F***ing Lady!

King’s Head Theatre until 3rd June

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: