So picture the scene – Mr Big’s Salon in Barnsley, ‘the best hairdressers in all the land’. Mr Big is a balding hairdresser who cares more about how our hair makes us feel inside than he does about money. If you can also imagine an abattoir that is in threat of closure, a kick-ass song called ‘Cut and blow job’, some very talented improvisers, then you may get a sense of the evening we had watching the Showstoppers at Barnsley Civic.
Showstoppers is sort of a musical theatre version of ‘Whose line is it anyway?’, as the show is made up entirely ‘on the spot’, taking plot suggestions from the audience. Now this approach to theatre is risky. What if you get terrible suggestions from the audience? What if you get no suggestions? I suppose, to some degree, the options audiences will suggest can be predicted, or at least, an ‘educated’ guess can be made. To some degree. However, making up not just dialogue but melodies without any rehearsal is impressive. Andrew Pugsley, as the ‘director’, with his droll conversations with ‘Cameron’ the producer put us right at ease. He knew exactly which audience suggestions to go with and which to subtly (or not so subtly) shove to one side. Like finding out that the love interest was an incestuous brother-sister affair, well that didn’t quite make it to the plot, nor did, ‘Cut and Blow Job’ make it as the show title. (I guess there is no where but x-rated to go from a musical with ‘blow job’ in its title.)
This is definitely one of those performances where you really need to be there, but let me attempt to convey a flavour of ‘made-in-Barnsley’ version of the musical ‘Hair today, gone tomorrow.’ First off, there were a number of bizarre accents and a whole load of immigrants in need of a job at the local hairdressers. There was a hat tip to traditional Yorkshire with flat caps, Yorkshire colloquialisms, and of course, lots of tea drinking. There was also a character called Jack ( not the actor) Davenport who ran the local abattoir and seemed to have been based on Larry Hagman’s character from Dallas, JR Ewing. There was a song about ‘having a laugh’, this was lovely because it set up an image of traditional Yorkshire folk and how much they can keep smiling through hard times, and then turned this around with a sarcastic tone, making us question how much of ‘a laugh’ it actually was. Right from the start, the performers made the audience laugh, and so had us ‘on side’ from the outset. They managed to find those corny punch lines, to connect their story to the place and people they were performing to, and even managed to make the few clunky moments entirely charming. After all, performers who are assured enough to openly acknowledge their mistakes, and use them to create something funnier, are very good at what they do. They even commented on what we, the audience, did, commenting on hearing bats nearby, when we applauded mid-song instead of waiting to the end.
One of my favourite bits was how they let us tweet suggestions in the interval for the second half (though I have to admit I was mortified to have my twitter handle read out). This is a clever thing to do, as it gives the audience some ownership without much exposure (shouting out comments is harder to do than suggesting by tweet). We also got to have a bit of fun, making outlandish and ridiculous suggestions. Like a ‘revolve’, fountains and ponies in the style of the musical Wicked. What was even better is that they used the suggestion. They performed a ‘break up’ song with a revolve, a fountain and ponies as per my tweet. It was especially funny because I could imagine the grandiose fountain, ponies, and a revolve, even though in reality, it was people waving red scarves, wearing red hats trotting like a pony, and standing on a box seat on wheels. I just laughed my arse off watching this scene. The simplicity of the props is one of the things that made the performance work so well. Another wonderful moment was the big showstopper in the second half called ‘Lady of surprises’. It involved one audience member getting a make over and being sung to by a transvestite lingerie designer, with the help of a few hats, a scarf and two little red pompoms strategically placed by the performers.
The Showstoppers is entertaining, refreshing and I would recommend it to Musical Theatre ‘lovers’ and ‘haters. I am left intrigued, wondering what will happen in the next performance – I suspect the next performance will have a little less abattoir and ‘sauciness’. Then again, I may be wrong.
If you are quick, you can catch the Showstoppers in Otley on sunday 20th or for other venues click here.