Pippin's potency is as synthetic and carbonated as a caffeine fix
I’ve never seen anything like this nerdish, video game revival of the Sixties musical that time forgot.
The passage to the auditorium is even mocked up to give it the feel of an adolescent boy’s bedroom.
It can only lead to the artistic equivalent of mouldy socks, fetid air and grubby joysticks.
And right enough, Roger O. Hirson’s story is rooted in tawdry adolescent fantasies of self-discovery as our hero Pippin (Harry Hepple) finds himself swallowed up by a video game in which his father turns out to be the warmongering tyrant Charlemagne the Great in 800AD.
Boy, if I had a dime for every time that happened to me..
Constructed like a video game with a succession of ‘levels’ of difficulty, the show gets its sweaty little fists on lots of issues like politics, war, religion and of course sex.
But all that’s entry-level stuff and the real pleasure lies in its abandonment to hardcore geeky-ness.
The 40-year-old lyrics were by Stephen Schwartz (the ‘brains’ behind Wicked), and mid-lifers will, I suspect, take furtive delight in the mash-up of wah-wah pedal and groovy Hammond organ.
The effect is like the musical Hair colliding with an Eighties episode of Dr Who — complete with oodles of raunchy dancing from double-jointed lady robots in all-revealing Lycra.
The most striking innovation in Mitch Sebastian’s production, though, is Timothy Bird’s sci-fi design, which turns the auditorium into the inside of a games console with green lasers running round outlines of the set.
There are also sword fights between Pippin and projected foes, and even video dating, with rival girlies relayed on screens in all directions.
There are suitably goofy performances, too, with Hepple from TV’s sci-fi drama Misfits making an excellent choice of hero — a pigeon toed Wearsider searching for peace and fulfillment.
Ian Kelsey, as the dictator Dad, is a nicely weary war criminal and Frances Ruffelle as his curvy wife is an ingenious hybird of cabaret artiste and Barbara Windsor.
The whole thing has a big tacky grin painted on it, too, in the shape of MC Matt Rawle. A cross between Russell Brand and Tim Curry in a Teflon suit, he has the curious appearance of a Cluedo character with his outsize head.
Pippin will not be everybody’s cup of Red Bull, but you can’t deny its potency as a synthetic, carbonated caffeine fix.
The passage to the auditorium is even mocked up to give it the feel of an adolescent boy’s bedroom.
It can only lead to the artistic equivalent of mouldy socks, fetid air and grubby joysticks.
Pippin (pictured on stage) is a nerdish, video game revival of the Sixties musical that time forgot
Boy, if I had a dime for every time that happened to me..
Constructed like a video game with a succession of ‘levels’ of difficulty, the show gets its sweaty little fists on lots of issues like politics, war, religion and of course sex.
But all that’s entry-level stuff and the real pleasure lies in its abandonment to hardcore geeky-ness.
The 40-year-old lyrics were by Stephen Schwartz (the ‘brains’ behind Wicked), and mid-lifers will, I suspect, take furtive delight in the mash-up of wah-wah pedal and groovy Hammond organ.
The effect is like the musical Hair colliding with an Eighties episode of Dr Who — complete with oodles of raunchy dancing from double-jointed lady robots in all-revealing Lycra.
Modern musical: Set in 8000AD, Frances Rufelle arrives on stage as Fastrada
There are also sword fights between Pippin and projected foes, and even video dating, with rival girlies relayed on screens in all directions.
There are suitably goofy performances, too, with Hepple from TV’s sci-fi drama Misfits making an excellent choice of hero — a pigeon toed Wearsider searching for peace and fulfillment.
Ian Kelsey, as the dictator Dad, is a nicely weary war criminal and Frances Ruffelle as his curvy wife is an ingenious hybird of cabaret artiste and Barbara Windsor.
The whole thing has a big tacky grin painted on it, too, in the shape of MC Matt Rawle. A cross between Russell Brand and Tim Curry in a Teflon suit, he has the curious appearance of a Cluedo character with his outsize head.
Pippin will not be everybody’s cup of Red Bull, but you can’t deny its potency as a synthetic, carbonated caffeine fix.
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