The rather curiously titled Le Navet Bête Theatre Company, which, for those of you who don't speak French translates as 'The Stupid Turnip', along with the cooperation of Exeter Northcott Theatre came to the Lowry this weekend to present their latest offering, a comedy romp through one of literature's most enduring and oft-cited novels, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers.
The company of four not only portayed the now famous names of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan, but took on all the other roles from the novel which were required to serve the story - and as far as the telling of the story was concerned, then they certainly did manage to be very faithful to the original and most if not all the salient characters were present, including some very convincing female impersonations too. The evil Lady De Winter being my favourite.
Utilising an aesthetically interesting multi-level set [ostensibly their tree-house when they were young] with minimal and very visible costume changes - oftentimes too visible.. we really did not need to see naked flesh! - these four talented comedy actors took us through the story with a very tongue-in-cheek flair, ever-knowing that we were watching, as the fourth wall was consistently being broken.
The influences in htis particualr style of performance are varied, but it was very easy to see touches of 'The League Of Gentlemen', 'Bottom', the work of theatre companies such as Spymonkey, and the whole wrapped up in a generous smothering of 'Horrible Histories'. It was fast-moving and the performers confident and craftsmen. However my over-riding concern was I wasn't sure that they knew who their target audience was. At times it was very pantomime-like, and the idea of asking audience members to throw ducks onto the stage at one point was something for the 4 year olds. However, some of the language used and the images created were most definitely adult only entertainment, and when one of the characters used the word 't***' I knew it had gone far too far for it to be suitable for children.
In the first act much of the humour fell flat and the audience took a long time to either warm up or be convinced. The second act was a lot slicker and the laughs came more freely, but by that time it was a little too late. However, on reflection, the audience this evening consisted mainly of adults, and the second half of the play is geared more toward the adult end of the audience spectrum, so perhaps that was the over-riding factor.
A pleasant enough diversion for the evening, and we were entertained, but it sadly did not live up to the hype and the expectations.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 12/7/19
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