Return to the Forbidden Planet
Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne
What do you get when you cross a jewel of a regency theatre, with a Shakespearean tale of magic and star crossed lovers, full throttle rock and roll and even throw in a roller-skating trombone AND therein playing robot?
Bob Carlton’s sci-fi musical, inspired by The Tempest – Return to the Forbidden Planet, that seriously weird jukebox musical. The first of its type and never surpassed this collection of scenes and characters and just about most of the plot from The Tempest is spliced and morphed together with some of the most memorable music from the golden age of rock and roll. Done with style, even if not with much sophistication, with a cast who fully commit and have the musical ability to back up the absurdity on stage. This is fun with a capital F.
The cast are all superb, they boldly go, all the singers filling the sometime unforgiving acoustic space of the Devonshire Park with belters, and with a huge range of musical abilities. They are certainly full of energy and the amount of training to get the highly choreographed movements right, or deliberately wrong (wink wink), is testament to the amount of work that has gone in to this slick and engaging production.
With sets from Julie Godfrey which nod to more than a half dozen different Sci-Fi shows and some fun projections which added great value to the show, including a rather clever take-off scene from the grounds of the theatre itself and a fun first appearance from the monstrous destructive cephlapod ID of Dr Prospero. Director Chris Jordan has pulled it all together with just the right amount of tongue in cheek-bugger-the-fourth-wall silliness and seamless musical segues from musical director Dan de Cruzto ensure it all works. On paper is always sounds like a real rag bag of a show but on stage, in the hands of such charming performers, this thing flies!
It’s a seriously odd show, shuttling Shakespeare up against rock and roll, review theatre, musical comedy and some slick and silly audience participation. It’s a real curates egg, but not withstanding it’s weirdness, it’s fun and in this case, with their full octane performances the cast give every ounce of their energy to ensure the show rockets into the high end of fun from the off.
There was a lovely moment where Cookie the Base was doing some seriously wild riffing on his guitar, howling and screaming the chords with real passion, filmed in close up and with as much passion as could be muster, a shoulder axe throw pulled the lead out of his guitar and all was silence, he continued to act like hell, the band ploughed on, he grappled with the lead, reinserted it and went on to bring the house down. It looked rehearsed but was one of those serendipitous moments of pure show business which only thrilled the audience more. Great stage tension is always rewarded.
The packed house was well up for this kind of musical high campery and loved every moment of it, laughed at every pun, even the bad ones, even the rotten ones, and clapped for more. The standing ovation at the end was well deserved as this young cast worked themselves into a sweat to entertain us.
All that, some very cheap drinks at the bar ( you get change!!) and then the most romantic drive back across the downs and along beachy head with a huge sliver of creamy crescent moon hanging over Seven Sisters, blissful.
Well worth the jaunt!
Until September 1st.
For more info or to book tickets see the Devonshire Park Theatre website here:
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