This show has a classic Edinburgh Fringe attention-grabbing premise: a musical where the characters are made from dead animals. Described as roadkill meets X-Factor, this four-performer, two-musician show takes the classic musical theatre plot (a bunch of performers want to put on a show as we watch the impresario corral the talent and deal with the egos involved) and gives it an original twist. For all the characters are puppets made either from the pelts of dead animals or occasionally from dead animals themselves… but more about that soon.
The songs are well sung, practised, and entertaining as the puppeteers concentrate fiercely on operating the puppets which it has to be said is not easy to do, as they have understandably floppy bodies (they are just pelts after all) and the heads have been modified with eyes that are larger and more cartoon-like, as well as moving lip-synch mouth action. They are thrown about enthusiastically by the puppeteers who, while lacking huge amounts of manipulation skills, have total focus on their puppet charges.
The plot of the show involves a menagerie of depraved yet talented wild animals at the bottom of the garden convincing a pet dog to join their troupe in order to lure the dog’s owner into their plan. In the end the plan succeeds and the human is summarily despatched in an oddly different but effective mask sequence. In between we see and hear the all-singing all-dancing troupe of badger, fox, cat, mink, squirrels, and chickens pastiche various songs, styles, and genres of music and musical theatre.
You’re either going to not mind the whole dead animal thing and go with it or probably not come; let’s assume that you have the stomach and disposition to roll with it. Sometimes the show gets away with it and it’s witty, entertaining, and wildly inappropriate. Every once in a while it becomes startlingly tasteless, pushing the premise just a bit too far, most notably when the mink ‘strips’ and a carcass is brought out to entertain and shock in equal measure. The night I was in there was a distinct and noticeable lack of clapping at the end of that number, just silent shock and a little disbelief. If you’ve come for bad taste, this show is unmissable.
Presented by The Vaults