FLEECED | STAGE REVIEW
The Gate, Cardiff, Thurs 14 Nov
Sitting at his parents’ dinner table, reading Ancient Greece’s version of Heat, is Jersephules. Overcome with a desire to take off on adventure, disguise himself as a woman, and steal from King Midas, he sets off on a musical journey which is genuinely very very funny. With an assemblage of figures from Greek Mythology, including a lonely Medusa and her hand-puppet friend, (H)Andy, Jersephules seeks out the Golden Fleece to appease the raging Hades (tricked into love by our hero’s feminine appearance) .
With a sense that it echoes the ways of The Mighty Boosh, on times the plot gets rather surreal – Medusa sings a moving duet with her dying hand-puppet – but it never loses its charm. The lyrics are witty and the humour is very self-aware.
The small cast of only six, accompanied by a six piece band and a scaled-back set, manage to create a full and busy show filled with an array of characters, all brilliantly funny and convincingly played. For a first foray into musical theatre, these songs are impressively good and the cast can really sing. Though the show may go on a little long – about two and a half hours – it’s enjoyable right to the end.
If time and space allowed, a special mention would go to each of the cast members who all performed brilliantly but the shining star seems to be Emyr Wyn-Jones who portrayed the storming Welsh Hades; the eccentric-but-sweet King Midas; and the galumphing pirate, all with brilliant wit. The parting pearls from Fleeced are that friendship is important; anyone can be a hero; and if you want to be a woman then you can be. With genuinely likeable characters, songs that will stay in your head for days afterwards and enough humour to make even the surliest of audiences laugh out loud, the By The Book theatre company have turned out a genuinely enjoyable show.
words LAUREN SOURBUTTS