Rosie Rowlands Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

Red Palace

The Vaults

Reviewed – 2nd October 2019

★★★½

“All the necessary components are there … I could just do with a little more amazement and a little less explanation”

Shotgun Carousel’s reputation for outlandish and stunningly executed immersive events far precedes their current show, Red Palace. After last year’s outrageously decadent Divine Proportions, I was fully prepared for an evening of hedonistic debauchery, expertly implemented to lavish excess.

he concept (Laura Drake Chambers) is strong from the start, and all-encompassing: There is a prophesy known across the land that after a thousand days on the throne, the tyrant prince will come to a bloody end. But the prince has no intention of giving up his rule and instead he’s throwing a party on the very day this prophecy should come to pass. Dress code is “your best ball attire and a mask to match” ( don’t worry, you can borrow a mask at the box office). It really is very effective to walk in to a dimly lit room full of masked faces, even if you know most of those are your fellow audience members.

For those who decide to indulge, dinner is served before the main event in a gallery overlooking the hoi polloi. MasterChef semi-finalist Annie McKenzie has whipped up a true feast – I’ll be thinking about that sticky honey soda bread with whipped rosemary butter for days to come, and I only wish I’d snuck in some tupperware for a little more of that rich, crispy shallot tarte tatin.

Performances are promised throughout dinner, but instead we’re occasionally introduced to a character from the main show’s narrative who we’ll no doubt encounter again later in the evening. This is a little disappointing: A performance suggests something of a spectacle and instead we have a preview of a show we’re already signed up to see. The cast themselves are magnificently adorned (Maeve Black) in gothic glamour, and they each play their parts with impressive commitment, even when hassled by substandard audience banter.

The show itself, directed by Celine Lowenthal, takes over the majority of The Vaults, sending the audience sprawling across various nooks and crannies throughout the venue. Initially there’s a sense that we might wander casually from room to room, making discoveries for ourselves, but after the first, we’re shepherded from one spot to the other to observe various necessary parts of the evening’s main plot.

The aesthetics don’t disappoint. Every space has been lovingly crafted to create vastly different atmospheres in each: Snow (White), styled as Barbie Madonna, is throwing a very sad birthday party in her sickly pink boudoir; Gretel (of the famous brother and sister duo) hosts an illegal cabaret with bathtub gin to boot; Red (Riding Hood) hides in the dark, dank forest, plotting her revenge against the prince. But concepts aren’t quite taken to their fabulous potential so within reach. Instead there’s a slight amateur fiddliness to it all, causing a lag between the evening’s tent-pole performances, and slightly sapping the fun out of it as the audience shuffles from one room to the next.

All the necessary components are there: stunning designs, exquisite food, engrossing performances and a well thought out concept. I could just do with a little more amazement and a little less explanation. No need to continuously force feed us the plot, we just want to have a radically decadent unicorn of an evening. Whilst for most that would be too much to ask, it’s what we’ve come to expect from Shotgun Carousel, and on this occasion they’ve just missed the mark.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Nic Kane

Red Palace

The Vaults until 12th January 2020

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Donal The Numb | ★★★★ | March 2019

Essex Girl | ★★★★ | March 2019

Feed | ★★★★ | March 2019

How Eva Von Schnippisch Won WWII | ★★★★ | March 2019

The Talented Mr Ripley | ★★★★ | March 2019

Vulvarine | ★★★★★ | March 2019

Bare: A Pop Opera | ★★★ | June 2019

Black Is The Color Of My Voice | ★★★★ | June 2019

Me and my Whale | ★★★ | June 2019

The Falcon’s Malteser | ★★★★★ | July 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★

“some brief glimmers of brilliance … but ultimately it feels, well – wooden”

Pinocchio, as Disney have proved, is ripe with material that modern audiences of children can enjoy and learn from. This new adaptation, written by Mary Swan and directed by Kaveh Rahnama, unfortunately features hackneyed lessons and little that entertains in a disappointingly slow and low-energy affair.

The story follows the original fairly closely as we see Pinocchio (Floria Da Silva) as a puppet come to life, eager to please his creator Gepetto (Umar Butt), but also easily misled by the conniving Cat (Ed Stephen) and Fox (Rosie Rowlands). However, this adaptation sees a few beloved aspects ignored, such as Pinocchio’s nose growing when he lies, which features only once and very briefly. As a result, the lessons and morals about responsibility and honesty woven into the fabric of the original story feel like they’ve unnecessarily been ripped out. In their place, this script tries to explore themes of parenthood and specifically being a single parent, but the differing intent of the source material makes the moments that focus on these concepts feel inorganic and cumbersome.

Unfortunately, the clunkiness also bleeds through into the telling of the story. Rahnama has tried to incorporate acrobatics and circus elements into the performance, but they fail to come across as story – or character-driven, and instead as an attempt to gloss over the cracks in the plot with gimmicks. This happens too with set and props, as ideas are introduced and then discarded almost instantly; the use of a huge sheet as the ocean, for example, could have made for a visually stimulating sequence but instead is just scenery to an otherwise static and uninspired moment.

The most crucial litmus test of a children’s show, however, is of course the children’s reaction, and unfortunately they seemed restless and uninterested. Many of the jokes and ‘showstopping’ acrobatic moments were met with silence, and the uncomfortable pauses where the actors were expecting laughter or applause dampened the energy greatly, and brought the momentum of the show to a crawl. Pinocchio features some brief glimmers of brilliance, especially in moments in the last section of the show involving shadow puppets and bubbles, and certain performances such as Rowlands’ as Fox desperately try to inject life into the show, but ultimately it feels, well – wooden.

Reviewed by Tom Francis

Photography by Liam Croucher