Osip Theatre
Stephen and the Sexy Partridge
by Lily Bevan and Finnian O’Neill
Old Red Lion Theatre
9 December – 3 January 2009
 Couzens
A review by Mags Gaisford for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Take one well – known Christmas song. Slice it thinly. Stuff each part with a scattershot array of historic characters, distorted popular hits and comic stereotypes from the lucky dip of our cultural store of reference. Make a base. String it loosely together with a tenuous plot, pepper with appalling puns and see if you can get it to rise.
Crikey do you know it actually does? (Although on reflection I’m not sure it was supposed to be a soufflé). How does this monstrosity manage to stand alone? Perhaps the secret is the sharply relevant and well observed in – jokes that keep our attention. Or the outright, shameless absurdity that holds it all together.
So, for formality’s sake, the plot. Imagine a very stoned person deciding that the song ‘On the First Day of Christmas’ and Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ were all about the same thing. (Like, all religions are the same, man. And it’s all a conspiracy). Not only this, but if you put the two together you can learn some valuable lessons about the meaning of Christmas.
Scrooge has become Stephen: the hen – pecked, painfully predictable cliché of a ‘boyfriend’ sold to us by contemporary media. Lacking in imagination, mildly chauvinistic, mildly perverted, socially disabled. Torrents of abuse from his disappointed girlfriend send Stephen running to Oxford Street for a nice expensive gift – wrapped peace offering. ‘Something with facets and… meaning and.. facets!’ Here he meets The Partridge: ‘semi – supernatural mutant force for good in the universe’: who, with the help of her mystical pear, will conjure a world of dancing birds to teach him some lessons. Twelve, in fact. So this pseudo – moral tale of Stephen’s transformation into.. well.. someone a bit different provides the excuse for a bunch of brilliant musical spoofs.
The walls of the stage are lined with 12 rough - hewn gold boxes with numbers, like a makeshift overgrown calendar. Behind their doors lurk bizarre props waiting to be used to help beat each zany episode into a fake moral conclusion. A glowing, animated pear appears occasionally in the corner to dispense irrelevant platitudes. And so the performance unfolds. It’s hard to choose a highlight. But Lorna Beckett’s Sarah Palin, talking fondly of family, Jesus and killing, (‘ahh, if only we could arm the unborn children..’) is not to be missed. Neither is Lucia McCanespie’s psychotic Anne Robinson with her team of geeks, choking on their outsize teeth. And oh, the Bollywood sequence!
How does this indulgent, shambolic mish – mash keep our interest for a sustained amount of time? Several reasons. First, the cast is a well – oiled 9 man (well, 1 man and 8 women) entertainment machine under the expert direction of the prestigious Cal McCrystal. You get the impression they’re thoroughly enjoying themselves, and together they can tackle any unlikely scenario. Unfortunately, the less than coherent programme makes it hard to give individual credit to its members,but there is no weak link here.
Second, Robyn Sympson’s choreography and Peter Salem’s musical direction are an absolute delight. Third, the timing is, mostly, deft enough to appeal to the TV generation’s tiny attention span. The beauty is, our awareness of the countdown time – frame prevents panic over its potential interminability.
The cosy and sophisticated Old Red Lion is a lovely setting – although at times the stage feels a little cramped, and the unwieldy numbered boxes don’t make it any easier for the cast.
The show presents a very contemporary condition, which can’t be ignored in the problematic ‘festive’ season. We are trapped in a kaleidoscopic swirl of influence, with ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture running hyperglo rings around us. ‘Point? Meaning? Direction?’ we dare to whisper. Perhaps the only path is that of self – conscious comic pastiche. Build a magpie’s nest of half – baked, noncommittal lessons in which to shelter from the consumerist flood.
You should, for example, be open – minded enough to appreciate Turkish food at the office Christmas party. The Pear says ‘do help old ladies across the road – but only if you’re not in a rush.’ Stephen learns ‘you can’t look at a girl’s tits – you have to look at her heart’. The joy of wild, nonsensical verbiage convinces us that Christmas is about being really, really silly. This lesson certainly wins, if the only alternative is Palinic pious hypocrisy – though maybe that’s the silliest of all. After all, says the hockey mum, ‘my brown paper package is tied up with God.’
Box Office: 020 7837 7816
www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk
Tickets £11/£14
418 St John Street, London EC1V 4NJ
Tuesday - Saturday 7.30pm, Sunday 4pm
24th December - 3pm
Please note there are no performances from 25 – 29 December or the 1st of January 2009
New Year’s Eve Gala Performance 31 December- Tickets £25 (including Champagne Reception)
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