Traverse Theatre,
Edinburgh
Three stars
Now the 1970s have been
tarnished forever by the behaviour, alleged or otherwise, of some of
the era's biggest show-business stars, it's as hard to satirise its
excesses as it is to know how to replace all the endless retro Bank
Holiday telly shows it spawned. Yet that's exactly what the Told By
An Idiot company attempt to do in a show that reimagines the custard
pie throwing anarchy of Saturday morning children's TV as the
accident waiting to happen it probably was.
It starts with our host
Niall Ashdown setting up a student union vibe with the framing device
of gathering the surviving presenters of a Tiswas-like show called
Shushi, which came to an abrupt end in 1979 when its sole female
presenter attempted suicide live on air. As a series of live rewinds
reveal a culture of casual misogyny, cultural stereotyping and
egomania, Ashdown interviews each of Shushi's alumni in turn,
including its female survivor.
As a comment on the
unseen indulgences of a seemingly untouchable mass media, there are
some deliberately discomforting moments in Paul Hunter's production
of Carl Grose's script devised in part with the company. The trouble
is, for all the kitsch recreations on show, there are too many mixed
messages being sent out. Any serious points being made are partly
undermined by the sheer fun the cast of six are so clearly having.
It's a tricky balancing act, but if Told By An Idiot's observations
are to matter as much as The Day Today, Alan Partridge and new BBC
mock doc W1A do, they need to go deeper and get much, much messier.
The Herald, March 28th 2014
ends
Comments