No, not another Channel 4 greatest-ever films show. This was the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete Hollywood (abridged) at the Theatre Royal Newcastle.
The RSC is very much a one-trick pony. They do the same thing, in much the same format, in all their shows: Shakespeare, the Bible, American history, classic books… and now the American film industry. Three young, Converse-clad Americans take the stage and dash, pantomime-style, through a subject that shouldn’t possibly fit into an hour-and-a-half. With Shakespeare, the original, it works brilliantly, as do the Bible and the books. But I think the problem they encountered here was how to make their show sufficiently different to, say, Scary Movie, or Naked Gun, or Young Frankenstein, or any of the many self-parodying films that Tinseltown has produced itself.
But that is not to say that this show doesn’t work. There are whole chuinks of the performance when the audience simply can’t stop laughing – the picture-perfect “silent movie”, complete with caption cards and train about to run over the “heroine”, or the world’s first (surely?!) live, on-stage “bullet-time” sequence.
But by trying to bolt a plot onto their sketches – the three actors are trying to make an “independent epic blockbuster” – it seems to lose itself. Not too much, but enough to slightly spoil the effect. Shakespeare (abridged) works because they take themselves seriously (ish), as does the audience. But here, telling the audience that they are all extras for this film serves only to unsuspend our disbelief (if you can actually say that).
There is a lot more audience participation in this show that in the others, with the whole front row on stage at one point, acting as zombies, and “Tony” (they’re all called Tony) standing in for a close-up. Morale: don’t sit on the front row, or wear a bright shirt!
There is a fabulous monolgue made up of memorable quotes, a fantastic running gag with a character called Mr Henderson (“Hellooo, Mr Henderson” – after all, “Mr Anderson” would be violating copyright) which the audience seems to get well before the punchline arrived… and when one of the “characters” is called Luke, you just know that “I am your father” well turn up eventually!
While possibly not quite up to the standard of previous Reduced Shakespeare productions, the Complete Hollywood (abridged) is nevertheless great fun. And you really should go – after all, “no one goes to the theatre anymore…”