Above the Stag Theatre – until 28 April 2019
2**
Oh dear.
I REALLY wanted to love this musical and taking in the details of the exciting set full of screens as you enter the theatre, expectations were high.
But then the show began.
Barney Ashton-Bullock’s show, the third about Torsten, a gender fluid, polysexual semi-immortal is a hot mess. It may have helped if I’d seen the first two, but I doubt it.
Set in post-apocalyptic Britain, after an unfortunate blunder mistaking the nuclear button for the king’s g-spot, narcissistic diva Lady Domina Bizarre (Matthew Baldwin – the best thing about this show) presents the only TV show left from the ruins of the famous Queereteria nightclub. Lady D has Torsten (Andy Bell) captive in a Bell jar (yes, that’s the level of humour on display) sedated and performing on cue for the audience at home. Eventually Torsten is freed by his lover Daniel (Ashton-Bullock) and Lady D’s gentle sidekick Rupert (the fabulous Peter Straker) but that really doesn’t result in any huge changes, apart from Bell singing standing up rather than on a stool. Young Torsten and Daniel’s relationship is presented through dance by Tom Mann and William Spencer (who also choreographs), but the two are never quite in step with each other – something I desperately hope is an intended indicator of their doomed relationship, but maybe not.
Ashton-Bullock probably has some message about censorship and fame in modern media in mind, but this is completely lost amongst lots of self-indulgent and trite psychobabble and toilet humour. The whole thing feels like an under-rehearsed student skit that outstays its welcome. There are about 10 minutes of good material in this almost two-hour long show, and these passages of relief all involve Matthew Baldwin. There is a fantastically filthy cookery section which feels like Pam Ayres in A Chocolate Orange, and an inspired Dragons’ Den sketch, but the rest is all cock, arse, piss and poo jokes that become monotonous. Ashton-Bullock looks extremely uncomfortable onstage, and Andy Bell is basically just there to sing in between sketches. The musical numbers are a welcome relief, with Christopher Frost’s music pleasant enough, but the lyrics (from Ashton-Bullock) are woeful, and they could all lose a verse and a couple of choruses. Maybe they just wanted Andy Bell to sing for as long as possible.
A disappointing and misguided mess. Put Torsten back in his jar and listen to some Erasure instead.