Comedy Festival Review: The Hunting Of The Snark

It wouldn’t have been surprising to find the characters being eliminated one by one until there was a Treasure Island winner in the Playground Collective’s The Hunting of the Snark at BATs. But there was also a whiff, maybe because it was May, of the old university revue. In the manner of a latter day Extrav fragment there were lots of talented young men and a couple of lovely young women shouting and posing and posturing with very little direction and in-jokes galore.

True to its subtitle - sanity is SO yesterday - it may have been in fact the day before yesterday when it opened. The stage was littered with collapsed puppet characters while the theatre was slowly and painfully filled to the last but one seat. When they came alive the characters satisfyingly filled the stage with their luggage and their antics, antic dispositions and crazy insanities.

The luggage played its part with a panache not seen on the carousel. It lined up, it made itself into furniture and it complemented the action in a well-disciplined and deft way. The collective knew what it was doing in making the set their own.

Butcher, Baker and Billiard who yesterday may have been Robin Kerr, Uther Dean and Max Hardy made memorable moments in the midst of the shouting and the doll-like Alice in Wonderland, Bonnets, who was really Georgina Titheridge was delicious. Oliver Cox made a Caliban creature of style but the stars were Kirsty Baxter’s skinny wire puppets and great flapping winged creature and Patrick Watman making the live music alive.

When the Playground Collective gets off the island they might search for something less crazed and if they find it that will be a good thing.

ENDS

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