Theatre

Arabella's Revenge

John Underwood | Monday 8 August, 2011 13:40

Starring two performers in twenty-odd roles including muzzled four-year-old Veronica, Pablo the nymphomaniac plumber and Kevin Spacey as the Orange Juice Monster, Arabella’s Revenge is clowning via the Goon Show and the League of Gentlemen.

Characters are suggested by devices as simple as an accent, an inventive gurn or, erm, huge googly eyes made from some sort of icing (yes, they’re edible. Trust me on this) as the action speeds from the West End to a deeply suspicious hospital via the back garden of the titular Arabella, an infant psychopath whose twisted world can, I suspect, never be forgotten once seen. Moments of beautifully crafted humour shine through the jelly, spittle, sweat and contortions, but whether it’s the arbitrarily horrible one-liners (“When I was fifteen I used to fuck Italian policemen with a chair leg”) or the visceral revulsion engendered by the characters’ various sticky antics, one can’t help feel that this show relies more on constant shock than anything else. Captivating fun for ten minutes, but hard work if you have to sit through an hour of it.

Camden Fringe festival page

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