one4review | On 17, Aug 2016

This show could sit quite comfortably in the theatre section of the Fringe guide, such were the quality of the production values. The choreography – down to the last detail, like where each player needs to be before and after a scene change – is so good you don’t notice it unless you’re looking for it. The script, plot and story are solid, with no glaring plotholes or shoddy dialogue. The (onstage) music is excellent, adding rather than detracting from the whole. The lighting is unfussy and extremely effective.

It’s a sci-fi story with a really engaging plotline, which means it’s rather more than just a send up of some SF tropes and clichés (although that’s in there too). Those genre markers are gently mocked, but they’re also used and manipulated and played with to make and break audience expectations and, of course, for comic effect.

There were five people on stage – two playing the music, and three playing the plethora of characters. It was never difficult to work out which characters were on stage, and they were all brilliantly executed. If I were allowed one sour note, it was the poor male-to-female character ratio; but then you might get away with that by claiming that non-parodical SF doesn’t have many women in it either.

Brilliant show with a wide appeal.

Pleasance Courtyard, 17:00

Reviewed by Laura