Scuttle Published on September 10, 2016 by gracespencer13 Leave a comment
Scuttle – by Peter Clarke, Jo Greaves, Bryony Leatherbarrow, Kate Lewis, Sam Morgan, Chad Schofield, Gillian Upchurch, Kerry Upchurch, Cynthia Whelan, Helen Wood and Jo Wooley This hour-long medley of wild and wacky sketches had me laughing from the outset, with its tongue in cheek introduction, a variety of hilarious topics and its distinctly merry atmosphere. The set was simplistic, consisting of a cleared space and three bar stools, which worked very well with the fast-paced changing of characters and scenes. With a total of thirty sketches, a huge range of amusing subjects were approached, including the relatable discomfort of secondary school sex education, the possibility of alien head teachers, and the trials and tribulations of fish with annoyingly short memory spans. Yet, perhaps, some of the most entertaining moments were when the sketches didn’t quite go to plan, making for some well-improvised hilarity. When a prop fell apart mid-sketch, the original script was left behind for a few minutes of completely spontaneous dialogue – between the worker bee that had lost an antenna and his drone bee companion. It was a real moment of comical genius. The show was punctuated with two instances of singing, one a particularly funny parody of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’, describing three women’s first times. The other was simply three women attempting more and more enthusiastic renditions of the same song, which had me incomprehensibly aching with laughter. Scuttle was a wonderful mishmash of loveable characters, terrible puns and brilliant comedic timing that had everybody in the audience wanting more; this talented group of people created and performed a truly memorable show.