Above The Arts Theatre 16 – 28 May. Reviewed by Claire Roderick
The Quentin Dentin Show is a wonderfully weird rock musical that takes a skewed and scathing look at the foibles of modern life.
Stagnating in a dead end relationship, Nat and Keith accidently summon the supernatural therapist Quentin Dentin to their flat. His methods are unusual to say the least, and just what is his hidden agenda?
The show starts quietly – as the audience takes their seats, the 3 piece band (led by Henry Carpenter – writer, composer and musical director) plays waiting room muzak while 3 eccentric white clad characters explore the place like childlike robots. The Voice (Freddie Fullerton) chooses one of the friends to be the next Quentin Dentin and get 2 humans to sign up to “The Programme”, and Nat and Keith are introduced. They find a magical golden microphone, Quentin Dentin appears and the show explodes into two of the most unpredictable and insane two hours of your life.
Quentin finds the couple two friends and makes them live out their fantasies – using only a sofa as a prop, we are taken to art galleries, under the sea, and outer space – but nothing makes them happy, and nobody likes you if you’re not happy!
The story is basically bonkers, but brilliant – any show that includes songs about lemons, space (“there’s literally no pressure!”) and the ocean (that plays like “Under the Sea” on a bad acid trip), showcases the worst gold lamé suit ever created and makes everything that happened to Alice in Wonderland seem completely logical is a sure fire hit. Since I first saw this show, Henry Carpenter and Tom Crowley have added extra songs and scenes and made a tight one hour production into a more meandering show. Yes, it’s interesting to see more of Quentin’s initial conflict, but the best lines and songs were already there, and the extra material doesn’t really add that much that is different to the story in my opinion. It’s still brilliantly entertaining though, and the audience members who hadn’t seen the previous version loved it.
Luke Lane is still phenomenal as Quentin. It’s as if someone distilled John Barrowman, Edmund Blackadder, Billy Graham, Jerry Springer and Marge Proops, added a gazillion blue Smarties and shook vigorously. He belts out his songs and is hysterical as he becomes more and more manic when his methods keep failing. His lines are delivered with sly and oily charm at first but soon he is threatening to insert stress eggs into Nat and Keith’s bodies, twitching and shouting “It’s not fascism if it’s good for you!”
Shauna Riley and Max Panks are great as Nat and Keith – more an owner/pet relationship than two adults as he bounds around the set like a puppy. Freya Tilly and Lottie-Daisy Francis as Friends 1 and 2 are full of energy, very funny and pop up all over the place.
A fantastic production. You don’t need therapy to be happy, just go see The Quentin Dentin Show.