Spymonkey's Moby Dick

Spymonkey and Glynis Henderson Productions

Gloriously anarchic, constantly entertaining. Inspired comic misrule. Moby Dick will give you a whale of a time' The Times****

A delicious mix of clever, rude and downright ridiculous comedy, Spymonkey live up to their comedic reputation. Spymonkey add their own unique style in what is a memorable, brilliantly funny production.
Whatsonstage.com

Stephan Kreiss delivers a masterclass in slapstick physical comedy as he attempts to climb some stairs and keeps sliding off.
The Guardian

If these multi-talented performers are on a mission to wow, they pull it off spectacularly.
Spoonfed.co.uk

Hilarious
British Theatre Guide

THE TIMES IN FULL

It’s shorter than the book, it’s funnier than the book, it’s got more visual gags, ventriloquist’s dolls, disco-dancing sea creatures and singing mermaid mastheads than the book. But will this latest spoof from the comedy-theatre quartet Spymonkey be their masterpiece, their The Play What I Wrote, after more than a decade of very physical, very funny mucking around?

Not quite. Moby Dick is gloriously anarchic, constantly entertaining, yet falls tantalisingly short of the sort of comic control that would make it more than the sum of its parts. What parts, though. The team’s different styles complement each other beautifully. There’s the beaming, heavily accented Spaniard Aitor Basauri, who plays Ishmael, the narrator — “My English is a little bit special,” he confides, “so you have to pay more attention.” There’s the handsome Brit Toby Park. He knows that stiff-backed archness alone won’t win the day as Captain Ahab — but it will give his castmates plenty to play off and undercut.

There’s the grey-haired German Stephan Kreiss, slipping between crazy characters such as Queeuqeeg or Starbuck — and repeatedly slipping, in one of the funniest routines I’ve seen all year, off the sloped deck of the Pequod, their boat. And there’s the athletic, unlikely Petra Massey who races around in scarlet wig and rubber rings, joining the boys to dance a sailor’s jig, forcing her way into this macho yarn. “I should have read the book,” she says. “I didn’t know there weren’t any women’s parts.”

The show follows Herman Melville’s story, but stops and plays whenever it finds a bit of business it likes. Lucy Bradridge and Graeme Gilmour’s impressive boat set helps them to be evocative of 1841 Nantucket when they want, just plain stupid when they don’t. They offer up then undercut every dramatic convention they can, but the jokes are never cheap because their skill is so apparent. They’re continental clowning meets Pythonesque parody; the Marx Brothers meets Complicite.

Jos Houben, a co-founder of Complicite, directs with one eye on the gag, the other on the story. After a while he gets a bit cross-eyed. The second half’s setpieces, including the burly Basauri in a clinging white whale suit, take over the narrative. There’s a few minutes between Ahab and Starbuck left deliberately joke-free. You can see why they want to vary the pace, but it puts the show off-kilter.

Perhaps a certain messiness is the price of so much inspired comic misrule. The metaplot about the actors putting on the show remains only piecemeal. The show should tighten as it tours, though it may need to go back into the dock to fulfil its massive potential. But let’s not carp too much: for most of its voyage, Moby Dick will give you a whale of a time.

 

 

Cooped Press Quotes

Spymonkey create dark, edgy and very funny physical comedy: somewhere between Monty Python, the Marx Brothers and Samuel Beckett.
The Houston Chronicle

Utterly infectious. A perfectly paced hybrid of the Pink Panther and Psycho.
The Independent

A carefully crafted brand of lunacy. Made me laugh so much my throat hurt.
The Times

A very, very, very, very, very funny show.
The Age Melbourne

This is one of the funniest pieces of theatre you will ever see. This beautifully crafted melodrama is packed with physical humour, silliness and exquisite performances form start to finish.If there's any justice in the world, these guys will be given their own TV series'.
Time Out