Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th October 2009 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

Oh my good god!! I don’t think in my life I have ever seen a show that was as unpredictable, hilariously surreal and as utterly bonkers as Spymonkey’s latest production.

Moby Dick is a re-telling of Herman Melville’s classic novel and follows Captain Ahab onboard his whaling vessel, the Pequod (Peckward? Peacock??), as he sails across the Great ‘Specific’ Ocean in search of the giant, white whale that took his leg. Any notion of Spymonkey’s comedy quartet getting weighed down and restricted by this classic story though is quickly thrown out of the window in favour of a glorious mishmash of surreal scenes, riotous songs and lunatic characters. The lack of plot is far from disengaging though and each set-piece is an absolute joy to watch. And even in between the underwater ultra-violet discos, violent storms, insane prophets, a priest with four 8ft long arms, making whale noises into microphones, repeatedly falling down stairs and sea shanty sing-alongs, all across a grand and satisfyingly well used set, they were still able to create some genuine and beautiful moments.

Every time you thought the evening’s proceedings had gotten as surreal as they could though, Spymonkey would take us to a whole new level of insanity until the show finally culminated in a truly brilliant battle scene between Moby Dick and Captain Ahab. I won’t spoil the surprise but needless to say my lungs were hurting from laughing so hard.

Occasionally the controlled lunacy did get a little too anarchic though and we really didn’t need the mermaid singing about dried sperm on her pubes. The cast would from time to time try to reign each other in as they literally lost the plot - “Come on! We’re more than half way through the show and only about 20 pages into the novel!” - but the surreal nature of the performance made it difficult to tell what was scripted and what was improvised. That, however, was the real joy of watching! It’s not often during theatre you can genuinely say you have no idea what is going to happen next but this seems to be the philosophy Spymonkey live by and it’s what makes Moby Dick so fantastic.

www.spymonkey.co.uk

Matthew Whittle www.matthewwhittleblog.blogspot.com