Stack

Stack is Stackard Banks – the insufferably twattish, wildly watchable and strangely likeable explorer-cum-documentary filmmaker spewed from the mind of writer-performer Ed MacArthur. Framed as a self-referential Edinburgh Fringe show, this musical comedy purports to document his noble, neo-colonial journey into the Heart of Darkness as he sets out to rescue a remote African tribe from the perils of the Amazonian rainforest.

Slickly intercutting live narration with music and prerecorded character voices—including stock interview footage of Sting, who comes along for the ride and offers bland new-age truisms in the face of each plot twist—Stack raucously skewers white saviorism, the gung-ho masculinity of frog-licking TV presenters seeking authentic immersion in exotic cultures, and the earnest spiritualism of anyone who’s ever gap-yah’ed south of the equator to “find themselves”.  

The story itself is an increasingly farcical pastiche of all the above, as Stack finds himself married to the tribe chief’s daughter, hooked on the local hallucinogen and heralded as a pant-shitting prophet – as well as embroiled in a sinister plot involving, of course, some diamonds. It’s wittily written, generously performed and features genuinely impressive tech – all of which have the audience guffawing throughout.

Inevitably though, at times there’s something unshakably uncomfortable about white performers parodying orientalist fears and fantasies, however knowing and undoubtedly funny the reference point is. Stack unashamedly crosses a few lines in its own quest for laughs, but it’s for the most part forgivable given MacArthur’s madcap energy, intuitive comic timing and whip-smart script.