Edinburgh 2013: Squally Showers - Like a low-budget Eighties soap opera, but more vacuous
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.There are glitter curtains and mullet wigs, an overhead projector and exercise video workouts. Welcome to the Eighties! Little Bulb, a young company of five actors, take us back the decade of greed and into the offices of a booming television company.
Highly stylised, they recreate the declamatory, melodramatic acting of a dodgy, low-budget Eighties soap opera, with exaggerated but precise diction, idiom and gesture. Performed to a soundtrack of schlocky muzak, it’s high camp and highly ridiculous. Corporate argo is neatly skewered; there’s much talk of markets and protocol and negative energy. Little Bulb themselves have a wild, positive energy, though their work is clearly carefully choreographed. They evidently have natural funny bones too; it’s just a shame there only seems to be one real joke here, which is: “the Eighties, eh? Cray-zee.”
Squally Showers goes to some wackily surreal places, with balletic dance sequences for weather reports, and a staff party where someone dons a Maggie Thatcher mask, unrolls a map of the UK and busts out body-popping moves as a fan blows paper money around. You think: “aha - here comes the satire”. But that’s as far as it goes, and overall Squally Showers doesn’t really have much to say. As a well-executed sketch, it’s top quality; as an hour-long show, it wears thin. Squally Showers is pure pastiche, gloriously realised, but ultimately as hollow as the stuff its sending up.
Till 24 August; box office 0131 662 6892
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments