“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.
“a bold, thought-provoking and inventive interpretation, coated in a dark tale but chock-a-block full of neat little treats”
Walking back to Waterloo Station after the show, I am approached by two moderately well-dressed gentlemen emerging from the crowds. I try to glance away, not look back; seized with a panic. There is a telephone booth half a block away, and two streets further on is the station; but the men’s shadows overtake me before I can step off the kerb. I try to quicken my pace. “Excuse me, Sir”. I freeze…
A playful exaggeration, maybe, of the after-effects of witnessing the Faction’s “The Talented Mr Ripley” at the Vaults Festival (the two men turned out to be evangelists from a nearby church) but my mood was an authentic reflection of how skilfully the play captures the cat-and-mouse psychological obsessions that fuel Patricia Highsmith’s original novel. The stakes remain high throughout the rapid-fire ninety minutes, yet Mark Leipacher’s excellent adaptation also manages to relieve the tension with high doses of humour.
Tom Ripley, a needy, nervous chancer is approached by Herbert – the wealthy father of a half-remembered acquaintance – to travel to Italy to bring back his wayward son, Dickie. Ever the opportunist, Ripley smells a quick buck and agrees. We follow Ripley to Italy, and beyond, on his murderous journey as he befriends, covets and becomes his new friend. The plot twists and turns as fast as the cast switch characters: a whirlwind – at the centre of which is the talented Christopher Hughes, whose Ripley never leaves the stage. Hughes gives an outstanding rendition of the chameleon character, slipping back and forth from obsequious buffoonery to manipulatively gaining the upper hand; all the while looking over his shoulder.
Although his is the pivotal role, he wouldn’t function without the precise and stylish, level playing support from the whole ensemble cast. Moments of physical theatre suspend the action while giving us a clear insight into the psychology of the characters. Shadowy gangsters in gabardines and fedoras become Ripley’s conscience, while in the later scenes Ripley’s moral compass is steered by the ghost of Dickie – a magnetic performance from Christopher York. Cries of “Cut!” occasionally interrupt a scene so it can be rewound and replayed with a different outcome: highlighting the fact that Ripley’s fate is governed by indecision, rather than a calculating criminal mind.
A large white raised platform, sunk in the centre, dominates Frances Norburn’s set design, behind, through and under which the characters appear and disappear. You never quite know where the next surprise is coming from. One of the biggest surprises, though, is the size (or rather smallness) of the cast. Jason Eddy, Vincent Jerome, Natasha Rickman, Emma Jay Thomas and Marcello Walton complement the two protagonists with their multi-rolling giving the illusion of a much larger company.
This is a bold, thought-provoking and inventive interpretation, coated in a dark tale but chock-a-block full of neat little treats. Cut down in size to fit the scheduling constraints of the VAULT Festival it loses nothing of Highsmith’s thrilling drama. On the contrary, the forced focus distils the narrative into a beautifully condensed and refined production.
