Lidia Crisafulli Archives - Page 12 of 15

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

★★

“not quite the rallying cry to action it ought to be”

Imagining the “blood and destruction” that will sweep Italy, Marc Antony famously pictures the moment when Caesar’s spirit “Ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice, Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war”. Lacking true drama, threat or passion, Tom Coash’s play, sadly, never lives up to the promise of its title.

Mohammed El-Masri (James El-Sharawy) returns to a trashed flat in Egypt after six days of imprisonment and beatings at the hand of the government police forces. Weakened and shaken by his ordeal, he turns to English gent Nicholas Field (Marc Antolin) to help him escape the regime. After pleading with Karren Winchester’s bizarrely entertaining immigration officer Ms. Nevers, Nicholas gets the visa they need. But Mohammed’s love for his homeland is not so easily overcome, and he ends up facing a stark choice.

Told through various conversations taking place in Mohammed’s flat, Coash’s script introduces a vital topic for our times: the continued and frequent imprisonment and torture of gay men in countries across the world. And yet his play lacks any real intention or high stakes, and his characters remain forgettable. We meet Mohammed at the wrong time in his story so that the anguish of his ordeal draws less sympathy than it should. Considering this moment defines so much of the character’s actions, some sense of who he was before his imprisonment would have really added to our understanding of his character.

Director Pamela Schermann’s well-known skills never quite shine through in this production, hampered, perhaps, by the script. Time passes, but it is often unclear how much. Her actors do well however in the regular black-outs to change scene in character. Mohammed and Nicholas’ relationship struggles to convince however, and even an awkwardly placed scene where the pair reminisce about how they met (and handily fills us in on their history in the meantime) fails to make it clear who these characters really are and why they are trying to be together in the first place. The climax therefore lands with a dull thud. This story deserves more.

‘Cry Havoc’ has too many caricatures and not enough character. An important story that raises awareness of a global problem, but not quite the rallying cry to action it ought to be.

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

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:

Park Theatre

Reviewed – 29th March 2019

★★

“not quite the rallying cry to action it ought to be”

‘Cry Havoc’ has too many caricatures and not enough character. An important story that raises awareness of a global problem, but not quite the rallying cry to action it ought to be.

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

Cry Havoc

Park Theatre until 20th April

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: