This is one of those shows you’re either going to love or hate. If you love children’s entertainers, fish and the TV series “The League of Gentlemen”, then you’ll be fine. If, like me, you don’t really care for any of these, then it’s not such a mirthful proposition.
On arrival, you are greeted by the two performers (Liz Hague
and Kate Mooney) floating onstage in a yellow dinghy. “Mind the water!” they
cry, as the audience finds its seats. So far, so good. Their characters, Daisy
and Petunia, are couple of jolly-hockeysticks adventurers who then proceed to
get washed-up at the village of “Beever”, where they encounter a series of
weirdoes.
Or at least that’s what they’re supposed to be. In fact, the hideously
twisted faces and strangulated voices of the half dozen or so nutters that
populate the town look like they’re straight out of My Big Bumper Book Of How
To Do Bonkers Acting. Highly derivative of many a dodgy sketch show, everyone
who’s meant to be mad suddenly develops a hunchback and an underbite, or simply
growls in a larynx-busting basso profundo.
On the plus side, the pair are clearly talented and are highly inventive with
staging and props (a particularly loony fish costume was hilarious). They also
came up with some slick storytelling devices, but a compendium of theatrical
devices does not, in itself, make a show. They’ll get better, though, I’m sure.