Online reviews for this show range from ‘I have been to see Avenue Q three times and STILL came out desperate to see it again,’ to ‘Favourite moment: Leaving at interval.’ While not quite falling into the second category, I have to admit it failed to appeal.
Yes there were some catchy, quite witty if moralistic songs but the whole thing relied heavily on our remembered love of puppetry classics such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, and that’s where it fell down for me. These puppets just didn’t cut it by comparison.
Despite the programme notes insisting we would cease to notice the performers manipulating them, such was genuinely the case in War Horse, or in Japanese Bunraku theatre productions, I found myself seeing double here – a bit like forgetting your glasses and seeing everything twice – puppet’s face/actor’s face… puppet’s face/actor’s face etc. The fact that the performers also made facial expressions and sometimes used body language to tell the tale also undermined the power of the puppets by competing for our attention. The vocal delivery, in shrill, tinny and flat New Yorker nasal tones was hard on the ear, and sometimes inaudible against a very bright band.
What I loved about Spitting Image, apart from its biting satire, was that the puppets enjoyed a life of their own, their handlers hidden. The intimacy of a TV format also drew you in to the subtleties of their facial expressions and theatrical timing. On the vast Hippodrome stage one admired the way the performers covered the boards under very bright lights, but we could have done with more use of spotlights to narrow our focus more on the puppets themselves. Their ‘minders’ often inadvertently stole the limelight.
The song lyrics rescued what would otherwise have been a humdrum evening. The Internet’s for Porn, Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, and If You Were Gay all showed more adventure than the general narrative, which dwelt far too much on the schmaltzy relationship between Kate Monster and Princeton, the very green post grad with an English degree. This was ‘thin gruel’ as Jacob Rees-Mogg might say compared to the wonderfully subtle bond between Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy in The Muppets for example. None-the-less there were some notable individual performances. Sarah Harlington as Kate Monster, and the unfortunately named Lucy the Slut, could really deliver a song, while Richard Lowe as Princeton and Stephen Arden, with the help of Jessica Parker operating a left arm, had impressive stagecraft and vocal range.
As the song went, ‘There’s a fine fine line between love and a waste of your time’. For many in the audience this was clearly a good night out, but I am not one of those who will be ‘desperate to see it again’. ★★☆☆☆ Simon Bishop 10th February 2016
