Picture from spymonkey.co.uk
Originally published by L.S. Media. October 21st 2009.
Cast: Aitor Basauri, Petra Massey, Toby Park, Stephen Kreiss.
If a classic book is worth recreating on stage then it is worth doing absurdly and with much gusto and insanely as possible.
In all honesty, not even straight theatre would tackle Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick without some trepidation and a crateful of memory loss inducing alcohol to forget the whole idea. It would be too overblown, expensive and almost impossible to re-create but such is the excellence of the four-strong cast that they were able to play nearly every part that was required of them with quickest of costume changes possible and with some of the greatest use of the imagination possible and not a quibble between them.
The four actors (the brilliant Aitor Bassauri, Stephan Kriess, Toby Park and the beautiful and funny as Hell Petra Massey) acted their collective socks off and with help from terrific backroom assistants produced one of the funniest plays held at the Playhouse and certainly up there with Noises Off from a couple of Christmas’s ago.
The team that make up the company Spy monkeys have been likened to the comic tradition of the greats Morecombe and Wise and the timing of Tommy Cooper, I would go much further and class them in the same vein as Michael Palin, Graham Chapman and all the others who made the Monty Python team and the all those involved with the Blackadder series. With every comic cue observed to perfection, the team never faltered once and even when the story was observed authentically during Queequeg’s dramatically moving speech to the obsessed Ahab, there was still enough going on off centre to catch your eye that would make you smile.
As an aside, the ending is so surreal you won’t be able to stop smiling and one of the best uses of Art Garfunkel’s Bright Eyes ever heard. Catch this fantastic night of comedy whilst you can! Huge well done to the team at the Playhouse Theatre for hosting this superb comedy.
Ian D. Hall