Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Bring children on a horrible, gory adventure
Horrible Histories: Awful Egyptians Bristol Hippodrome
EVER had a boulder thrown at you? Or come face to face with a scarab beetle? No? Well, if you book tickets to see the Horrible Histories: Awful Egyptians, that’s exactly what will happen.
Birmingham Stage Company, famed for being one of the world’s top family theatre groups, is touring this summer with two shows that demonstrate just how ‘awful’ (in the case of the Egyptians) and ‘terrible’ (in the case of the Tudors) us human beings can really be.
Based on the marvellous books by Terry Deary, Horrible Histories have been adapted into several Bafta-winning TV series; a just-released film with a starry cast; and now, in Bristol, a live stage show.
Just three, rather excellent, actors play all the roles in this educational/ fun production where the adults are kept happy with ‘ grown-up’ jokes
(Pharaoh Djoser portrayed brilliantly as a Donald Trump-type character – telling us how to build a ‘wall’/pyramid) and even Brexit slips in; while the children lap up the silly voices, madcap messing around and anything gory.
The story starts in a museum when teacher Miss Hap (Lisa Allen) and pupil Milo (Izaak Cainer) accidentally get locked in, and everyone else goes home. A statue of Ramesses the Great (Simon Nock) comes to life and there the adventure begins...
It was a slow start in the first half, maybe everyone was exhausted from the sweltering temperature outside, but things soon got going when we were shown how to ‘make a mummy’ and internal organs were removed from a ‘dead body’ – the yuckier the better for children, it seems.
The sing-along competition at the end of the first half livened things up a lot, but when Bogglevision happened after the interval, excitement levels reached a high. The 3D effects were fantastic, a bit scary for the very little ones, but it was laughter all the way as we were confronted with many things from the ancient world in our journey to the afterlife.
We all went home – happy, hot and with ice-cream round our mouths.
Horrible Histories continues at the Bristol Hippodrome today with Awful Egyptians at 2.30pm and Terrible Tudors at 7pm