one4review | On 20, Aug 2015

A few (one, really) of the techniques from their show last year is also in this show. That’s okay because a year more to play with it and develop it has meant an even more brilliant deployment. If you’ve seen Goose before, knowing what’s likely to come means you’re in on the joke (and you can feel smug), but if you’ve not, you get the full impact when all is revealed.

This is a one-man play with supporting music. That statement does not do it justice, but any additional ones like ‘with a Bond-esque plot and story’, ‘with extracts from the Encarta Encyclopaedia’ or ‘which might take place entirely in a Private’s fantasy’ aren’t going to help or do it any more justice.

There are at least a dozen characters, all played (with an absence of any confusion for the audience) by Adam Drake, with some help at the start and the end from some other people. There’s an anarchy about this show which is entirely superficial, since it’s underpinned by an utter comic control and discipline. In practice, it means you can’t tell the difference between the mistakes that are truly mistakes and the ones that were deliberate.

I could not explain how we got from where we started to where we finished via the convoluted twists of story (made worse by plot) but it was absolutely worth strapping in for the ride to get to the sublime and hilarious finale.

Reviewed by Laura

Assembly George Square, 15:20