Imagine an adolescent Just William recreating Mary Shelley’s novel as a one-man drama in the barn for his friends, and I think you will have a pretty vivid picture of the kind of production this is!
Lamphouse Theatre puts the age recommendation as “14+” – but I would say “14 exactly”: 14-year-old schoolboy humour is a perfect descriptor.They advertise their productions as “Silly – Noisy - Funny”.This is accurate, but Tom Fox does also add that whimsical philosophical William note to the proceedings, interrupting his story to muse on how the Oxford sense of humour differs from other audiences or on the wisdom of his costume choices.
One costume choice in particular is etched on my memory forever: picture, if you can, a fusion of Rik Mayall, Ken Dodd and Oliver Hardy, clad in a skintight bright yellow body suit, looking like a cross between some kind of weird fetishist, a human jelly and a rubber duck.And wearing a matching giant yellow zigzag on his head – to represent the lightning electricity which brings the monster to life.One has to wonder whether the Artistic Director was sober when he came up with this one …
This was essentially a one-man show, and Tom Fox carried the audience with him from start to finish.From the first clever and entertaining intro in humorous rhyming couplets (stressing always that the real Star of the show was to be the Low Budget) to the standing ovation he requested at the beginning and received at the end, he had everyone captivated.
The (entirely adult) audience all heartily enjoyed being 14 again: groaning at the awful visual puns, sniggering at the innocuously smutty jokes, throwing coloured balls at him when necessary and above all laughing at his outrageous storytelling inventiveness.
And, to be fair, although he was inventive in the way he told the story, he did actually stick fairly faithfully to the original text: his colleague/producer/narrator/techie Becky verbally chastised him if he started introducing any extraneous characters (eg an assistant Igor).
I hadn’t planned to buy a ticket for this production; although this team’s last offering (War of the Worlds – on a Budget) had won a 5-star review and was a sell-out in Oxford, this one didn’t attract the crowds for some reason; and the Old Fire Station issued a last-minute promo code on the day of the show, so it was a spur of the moment decision.Thank you, OFS! I am glad I went.It was inspiring to see what a great set you can build out of old cardboard boxes and silver spraypaint, and above all it was an unexpected hour of fun and camaraderie with the tiny but happy audience of 30 other fellow travellers and coloured ball-throwers.