Festival hits and misses

Young and Hungry Festival, Bats Theatre, until July 29

The annual Young and Hungry Festival at Bats Theatre is now into its 24th year and, as always, the three shows this year are just as diverse and vibrant as ever.

The added advantage now, however, is that with two performance spaces at Bats they have more time to set up and prepare so the production values have increased immeasurably, particularly in regard to set design, which for the three this year were outstanding.

The first of the evening is One Night Only by Finnius Teppett.

Directed by Stella Reid, it is the story of boy band FourEver, who are in town for one concert.

The problem is though that backstage things are not going well, with arguments amongst the band members, fans gate-crashing their dressing room and one of Satan’s sidekicks paying a visit for payback time.

Full of energy and performed at breakneck speed, it is obvious that the cast relish playing out the highly interactive dialogue to the point of being almost too manic at times but, when needed, they do find moments of subtlety to bring out the mounting tension and make this a great production.

The second play of the evening, Fallen Angels, written by Emily Duncan and directed by Rose Kirkup, is less successful: more in the writing, than the production.

A reality TV host runs a show called Max’s Angels about people who have been going off the rails turning their life around. However, one such angel is not happy about how things turn out for her and visits the posh home of the TV host with her whanau to take revenge.

Culture clashes, socio-economic groups and personal responsibility are some of the themes running through this play, but although the cast do reasonably well, the excessive amount of gratuitous violence, yelling and shouting negate much of what the play is trying to achieve.

Exploring the issues more with less action could make this an interesting production.

The final show of the night, Attila The Hun, written by Abby Howells and directed by Patrick Davies, is a stunner and although based on a slim and silly premise – the eponymous character making fat burgers in a takeaway bar – it is nevertheless terrifically silly and hilariously funny and the cast have a ball presenting it.

All the machinations of a diverse group of workers trying to work together while dealing with a disparate group of customers coming through is wonderfully played. The resulting mayhem in order to resolve the staffing disputes is an incredible piece of staging and ends this year’s Young and Hungry Festival on a very high note. – Ewen Coleman