Tape

I’d like to propose the creation of a new prize at the Fringe. The WTF award, given to the most baffling, pretentious, pointless theatrical endeavour. If it did exist, this show from the University of Central Oklahoma would surely run away with it.

A man resembling Jeremy Corbyn in a trilby and white-face makeup reads extracts from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He introduces us to his "son", whose head he proceeds to mummify in gaffer tape. A chorus of buxom girls, also in white face, then dress the poor lad in crotchless tights, and make him writhe around and contort on the stage. At one point they attach ribbons to him and dance to Beyoncé.

I struggle hard to find the connection to Frankenstein, extracts from which the Corbyn-alike continues to spout. I try my best to derive meaning from the fact a man has been trussed up like a gaffer-taped turkey. But these efforts are in vain. By the end I am actually quite impressed by the group’s willingness to bewilder.

If there is a positive to be drawn it's the impressive litheness of the man in the tights, a clearly talented performer deserving of pity. What he's subjected to over the course of a mercifully short 30-minute running time is nothing short of humiliating, physically and creatively.

It doesn't help that the audience contains at least three members taking photographs, seemingly an effort to produce production stills. They needn't bother. The less evidence there is of this crime against theatre, the better.