Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Three stars
After more than fifteen years creating once in a lifetime musicals out of thin air and audience suggestions, the Olivier award winning, BBC Radio 4 friendly comic troupe The Showstoppers will know to always expect the unexpected. Even so, when on tour, they should always brush up on the local landmarks, lest someone throws out some serious googlies.
Such was the hilarious case on Friday during the first of the Showstoppers two-night run at the Citz, when co-director and mine host for the evening Adam Meggido was taken somewhat by surprise on several counts. Firstly, while asking for suggestions of a location for his company’s still unwritten opus, the suggestion of Haven Caravan Parks threw him. As the purveyors of static caravan summer breaks are a UK wide operation, his reaction probably says much beyond geography. More pertinently, perhaps, when the Barras was suggested, it was clear that Glasgow's world famous market was a mystery to him.
While Meggido charmed his way out of this amusing faux pas, when he asked for suggestions of a playwright for the cast to perform in the style of, the name of Augusto Boal probably wasn’t on his dance card. Boal, after all, was a Brazilian radical, whose book, Theatre of the Oppressed, posited the notion of something called Forum Theatre, in which a scene is played twice, with the second allowing audiences to stop the performance and suggest a different course of action. While arguably hugely pertinent to the Showstoppers own raison d’être, only passing drama students were likely to appreciate any comic routines the suggestion prompted.
As it was, once Boal was swiftly ditched and the cast took on less niche suggestions, Meggido and co opted to set their world premiere in the co-op next door to the theatre. The cast of five drawn from the company’s large pool of performers were then tasked to concoct a narrative with songs in the style of Hadestown, Little Shop of Horrors, Benjamin Button, and The Cher Show.
What emerged in a play inevitably named Co-operation was an oddly touching illicit romance between a woman working in the pharmacy section of the shop and an actor who comes in looking for salmon. Cue a succession of Viz comic style old luvs, including the lead who once played the title role in a long running TV show about a singing detective called Inspector Cloud. The woman’s husband and their two daughters caught in the domestic crossfire gave things an old-school kitchen sink air.
While the first half probably relied too much on actor’s in-jokes, there were some fabulous comic moments, and lightning fast ad-libbing aplenty from the quintet of co-director Dylan Emery, Pippa Evans, Susan Harrison, Philip Pellew and Lucy Trodd alongside an equally quick-witted live band.
The second half was kickstarted care of assorted audience suggestions from Instagram posted during the interval, with a comment on the co-op’s empty shelves delivered à la Cabaret. The siblings played by Harrison and Trodd, meanwhile, finally got to wig out as Cher before a happy ending took us to - yes - a Haven caravan park.
This was all glorious wing and a prayer stuff that the company’s late mentor, comic genius Ken Campbell, would both be proud of and berate the company about in equal measure. One thing Campbell wouldn’t have shied away from, however, would be doing Boal in the Barras. Now that would have been a real showstopper.
The Herald, February 9th 2026
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