The Other Palace Studio – until 15 October 2023
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
3***
Exhilerating and frustrating in equal measure, Trompe L’Oeil is an intriguing and ambitious show slightly overladen with ideas and imagery.
Billed as a “hilarious blend of cabaret, queer theatre, and circus in a world where nothing is what it seems”, the first time the rug is pulled out from under the audience’s feet is the first glimpse of the set, with a huge picture of Donald Trump on the backdrop and rifling through the programme reveals two characters Trump and Ivanka – so this is a Trump musical? The show begins with a whimsical cabaret number led by Sarah Louise Hughes as The Imitator, before the two parallel storylines begin. Emer Dineen’s fantastic portrayal of Trump – bad orange foundation and white eyes, tiny hands just visible in her oversized jacket – and his presidency plays out alongside a tentative romance between staunch Republican Rip (Alex Wadham) and Democrat Demi (Dominic Booth).
Henry Parkman Biggs has been working on this show for eight years, and there is so much thought and detail in the lyrics and music (with Preston Jones) that it sometimes feels like a particularly fiendish round in Only Connect. I didn’t find the crib sheet explaining the puzzles and parallels in certain songs until the interval, but that didn’t stop me loving their ridiculous energy. Trump sings his entrance song “Magical Me” in the meter of Yertle the Turtle, Putin song is written as a Pushkin sonnet, Pity Party is an anagram song – there are even two songs where certain letters in the lyrics form an image – these may have been projected onto the stage, but I didn’t spot that from my seat to the side (I may have just been focussing on the cast and director Blair Anderson’s ingenious choreography.) Director and choreographer Anderson creates a spectacle on the tiny stage brilliantly, with stellar work from William Elijah-Lewis and Yasmin Sharp matching the acrobatic artistry of Hughes.
To ensure his presidency, Trump makes a Faustian pact with Putin (Hughes again as a VERY disturbing darkness dweller), allowing Putin to fix a vice to Trump’s scrotum that can be tightened whenever he disappoints his master. Olivia Saunders Barbie/sex doll version of Ivanka is hilarious as she sings “Blanke Verse” at his inauguration and husband Jarrod (The Imitator Hughes again!) sings a truly bizarre number as a horrified Statue of Liberty (Craig Bartley) looks on. The constant firing of his staff is covered in the exuberant “Bounce” with the cast gleefully performing tricks on a trampoline as they are dispatched. Magritte’s Son of Man provides government agents with cover as they hide behind giant apples and sabotage Trump’s laptop with apple juice. But nothing can stop Trump, and a delightful lipogram song full of insults using the only vowel key still working follows. Some wonderfully clever ideas adding to the Trump pastiches that sprung up during his first campaign.
Rip and Demi’s relationship, presumably meant to show that the two sides of the political spectrum can meet somewhere in the middle is the most unsatisfying part of the show, although Wadham and Booth give splendid performances and win the audiences sympathy for their characters. As they struggle to find words to describe Trump’s presidency – saying “surreal” has consequences that Dali would approve of, the portrayal of stereotypical discourse between left and right means that Rip’s right-wing views and his transphobic and misogynistic comments are meant to be hard to swallow
But we needed some retribution or at least education. Demi’s annoyance at his linguistic errors and prejudices becomes DEMI’S problem as Rip won’t accept criticism so they just stops and lets Rip keep talking loudly waiting for him to realise his mistakes instead of confronting him. The finale “Better Together” is a great song and dance number, but even the hidden message doesn’t create a satisfactory end to the characters’ arcs. But then this is a cabaret, and the best trompe L’oeil mislead and deceive. This is definitely a marmite production – I loved it, even though I probably missed a lot of references, the silliness and energy of this curious show are infectious.