The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon
Thomas Goodall (Director) et al @ Star Theatres – Theatre Two
2:00pm, Sat 26 Feb 2011
I arrive at the Star Theatres way too early on a hot, sticky, Saturday afternoon – just as well, really, because I’m still feeling a little achey. Desperate to avoid a bout of the flu – or even a bit of a cold – I scoot across the road and load up on echinacea, vitamins, and water. It may have been too little too late, or it may have been placebo; either way, I scoffed pills and guzzled fluids, and took my place in the most remote corner of Theatre Two.
Of course, being a Saturday matinée, the theatre was absolutely chockers (at least half were tweens or younger) and, as soon as everyone was seated, the show started – five minutes early! Our principal performers (Matthew Parsons and Nick Dooland), introduce us to the premise of the Spectaculathon: they would narrate us through the ensemble’s attempt to perform 209 Brothers Grimm fairytales, based on the original versions of the tales (rather than the Disney-fied versions). And, wooden presentation aside, early efforts were at least interesting: the bogan version of Hansel & Gretel worked pretty well, along with the one-man Cinderella.
But the Spectaculathon is a long performance; it clocked in at well over the nominal ninety minutes, and the children in the audience were distinctly restless both before and after the short interval. In fact, the kids paid scant attention to the Grimm content – until a piranha plant appeared in a backdrop, and a Mario lookalike appeared as one of the Grimm characters. And there’s far more misses than hits in the Grimm re-tellings; I really didn’t see the humour in their Red Riding Hood and Rumpelstiltskin efforts.
The ensemble were solid throughout, erring on the side of being over-earnest, with Alfie Simpson and Nicole Blinco being the standouts. But, despite the almost thrilling ending – where they try to jam in summaries of as many of the lesser-known Grimm fairytales as possible – there’s too much dead air between the laughs… and dead air gives me time to dwell on the deficiencies. And that, in turn, results in me leaving disappointed.