Theatre reviews: Swamplesque | Mary - A Gig Theatre Show

It may feel a little disjointed in places, but Shrek send-up Swamplesque still captures the cheeky spirit of midwinter misrule, writes Joyce McMillan

Swamplesque at Assembly | Contributed

Swamplesque, Assembly Hall, Edinburgh ★★★

Mary - A Gig Theatre Show, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★

Through the archway from The Mound, past the huge statue of John Knox in the courtyard, up the austere stairway and into the hall where the elders of the Church of Scotland still gather in General Assembly each year - Edinburgh’s Assembly Hall is a space with plenty of history, and since 1947 it has hosted many an Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe show, as well as more prosaic gatherings.

It’s safe to say, though, that it can never have hosted an event so gloriously silly, and so raunchily designed to make John Knox twirl in his grave, as Trigger Happy’s Swamplesque, a merry Australian parody of the Shrek story featuring an eye-popping cast of burlesque artists of all shapes and sizes, most of them pretty much determined to strip off, and shake their almost-bare booties at a shrieking and delighted audience.

The Shrek film, of course, dates back to 2001; and it’s arguable that Swamplesque - already a favourite on the international burlesque circuit - adopts a style that was more transgressive 20 years ago than it is now.

Yet still, the audience whoops in conspiratorial glee, as the show’s chunky star Trigger Happy appears in Shrek costume and huge green swamp feathers, leaping and twirling like a giant sugar plum fairy in a celebration of his rippling mounds of flesh, and radiating chaotic charisma. Then the show sashays on through the story, the nine-strong cast lip-synching wildly to smash-hit torch songs and clips from the dialogue, as the equally curvaceous Henny Spaghetti appears as our hero’s lovelorn donkey, and special guest star Bette Bombshell enters on her knees as Lord Far-quad, seamlessly morphing into a gorgeous female exotic dancer.

The show is short - at 60 minutes - and a little over-dependent on its mainly pre-recorded soundtrack; and sometimes it seems more like a series of acts quickly smashed together than a seamless satire on a much-loved showbiz phenomenon.

Yet at this time of year, it perfectly captures the cheeky spirit of misrule that has been part of humanity’s midwinter revels since time immemorial. John Knox once tried to ban all that, along with Christmas itself. Now, though, it’s back in full force; and the Rev. Knox’s statue will be lucky to survive the festive season without finding itself draped in a few peekaboo feathers, and wearing a sparkly thong.

Mary - A Gig Theatre Show | Carla Watson

John Knox also had much to say, of course, about his contemporary Mary Queen of Scots, the young female monarch whose reign in 1560s Scotland he denounced as an abomination.

Mary, though, has survived her defeat, and her later beheading in England, to become the sole Scottish monarch to enjoy the same kind of charismatic fame as England’s Tudors; and it’s thrilling, this December, to see the Traverse celebrating 2024 Fringe success Mary - A Gig Theatre Show, a powerful 55-minute rock cantata about Mary’s life and death, written and co-performed by Rona Johnston, that offers a strong 21st century feminist take on Mary’s story.

There are times, particularly during the brief spoken sections, when any Scottish theatre fan of a certain age is bound to yearn for the sheer poetic flash and burn of Liz Lochhead’s superb 1980s feminist response to the same story, in Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off.

When Johnston picks up her guitar and sings, though - accompanied by her superbly anarchic band of five other women musicians, playing her cousin Elizabeth of England and her devoted four Marys - there’s no resisting the sheer energy and anger of the music, and its hard third-wave feminist edge.

“They take your body, and they think they’ve won the war,” sing these young warrior women; but as with other brilliant feminist reimaginings of our past, present and future, the very existence of this show is here to prove those patriarchal voices wrong.

Swamplesque is at the Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, until 4 January. Mary - A Gig theatre Show is at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until 21 December