It was time for us to take a journey back to the '80s. A time of Walkmans, Walkie-talkies, Pac-Man, the Rubix Cube, leg warmers, ‘The Goonies’, ‘Back To The Future’, and big mobile phones. Little Soldier Productions in collaboration with Larking Arts present, ‘Journey To The Impossible’. devised and performed by Dan Armstrong, Lucy Bishop, and Javier Ariza, and directed by Mercẻ Ribot and Patricia Rodriguez. There was a plethora of 1980s film references in it.
Great Scott! We were in 1982. The curious Michelle was somewhat fed up of mingling and spending time with her bouncing brother, Callum and their brave friend, Div. His teenage voice kept breaking. There was something that Michelle was not allowed to see in the attic, according to her eccentric Uncle Verne - think of Dr. Emmett Brown. But inevitably, Michelle didn’t listen. They all sneaked into the attic and made an extraordinary discovery… their Uncle had built an inter-dimensional portal to another world. The journey began when Michelle, Callum, and Div crossed the void between two worlds. To a place where, because of one villain, it was absent of sparkle and magic.
Physical theatre was an adequate choice to bring energy to the piece, but occasionally the performance of the choreography needed to be more precise and lacked synchronicity. At the start, there was a reference to ‘ET’ with the bike flying in front of the moon, but it was too small for the audience in the studio theatre and nothing like it was done again, so it was pointless. One concept I couldn’t get my head around was whether the show was taking itself seriously or not. Most of it felt like a thoughtful play with moral messages of friendship and bravery to take away. On the other hand, once scene stressed the cheesiness of some of the cliché-ridden plot in a random musical theatre number. Afterwards, there was a metatheatrical joke where the actor, multi-rolling as Kenneth and Callum, kept swapping between the two characters as mischievously controlled by the other actors. Numerous jokes were overplayed too. It felt like the company were trying to implement too many theatrical ideas which often contradicted one another. As a result, the tone was muddled and all over the place.
As an ensemble, they recovered fairly well from the unexpected fire alarm. A mobile phone had caught on fire in the Lyric Theatre during Jason Manford’s comedy set causing a mass evacuation. Bishop delivered an improvised recap of the story so far, but this messed up the original opening of act two which saw the actors telling us to settle down, (we’d already been settled down for ten minutes). Spontaneous audience interaction happened around that point too but it was poorly handled, leaving the audience member confused about what he had to do. Although, the audience activity at the end, to help defeat the villian, worked nicely. I would say anything else unprompted that happened later on in the show, like the remark about this evening’s fire alarm, appeared to throw the other actors slightly. Much of the humour felt forced in as well. The narrative was fairly relatable to the children in the audience. But the dominant 1980's references and humour, aimed at the adults, will have alienated the kids watching. If this was meant to be primarily for the children and not the adults, then because of the 80s theme it didn’t work.
Sophia Clist’s futuristic set design was underdeveloped. However, the connected metal poles made it look like a climbing frame or a playground area, which was a satisfactory idea. The lighting design by Seth Rook Williams was effective in the scene where the characters were teleported and flown to another planet. The pre-show and interval music playlist could have featured more '80's hits.
Unfortunately, but I have to be honest, ‘Journey To The Impossible’ was predictable, got caught up in its many ideas, unsure of itself, and too long for the children in the audience. It might have worked better as a one hour piece. Sadly, it was more of a road to nowhere.
Reviewer - Sam Lowe
on - 25/5/19
No comments:
Post a Comment