Theatre review: Screwloose

Published on Sunday 16 August 2009 18:51

SCREWLOOSE QUAKER MEETING HOUSE (VENUE 40)

YOU'D have to have a heart of stone not to be won over by this madcap mask comedy from the Village Idiots theatre company. Blending the DIY aesthetic of the Wallace and Gromit films with some super-slick mime, it tells the story of Alan Kee, a frustrated, unemployed cuckold who spends his days assembling flat-pack furniture as a way of numbing the pain of his miserable existence.

When a shoe rack he is planning to build for his deeply unappreciative wife arrives without a vital component, his attempts to chase it up bring him into contact with a pretty-but-bashful furniture store administrator and also with a pair of wannabe astronauts, who need Kee's missing part to complete a building project of their own.

The set for this show – which transforms quickly and cleverly from a warehouse to a kitchen and back again – is a work of art in itself, and the exaggerated way the way the actors interact with it and each other gives the whole production the aura of a live cartoon.

The action takes a while to hot up, and there are a few points where the momentum flags, but the beautifully choreographed finale, though, would make Nick Park proud.

Until 29 August. Today 4:30pm.