Squally Showers
[author-post-rating] (4/5 Stars)

LittleBulb Theatre is a rare theatre company. Its work is infectious and adventurous, giving joy to its audience, wrapping them in excitement. Like a glow-stick handed to you at a rave, crack it in the middle and spend the rest of the night dancing in the awe of the fluorescent glow. That’s LittleBulb, and its new show, Squally Showers, offers the same giggly excitement as its previous Edinburgh hit shows.

Tackling the 1980s, with their political unrest and boom of television as the live communication, Squally Showers focuses on a television studio at the peak of entertainment and news. There’s a host of bemusing characters, donning wigs and moustaches and Yorkshire accents, who flounce about the stage with an air of importance and absurdism. There’s ghoulish masks and synthesiser music, coupled with floating dance moves and bubble machines that make you want to punch the air and shout “yes, yes, yes”. Plus any show that manages to have Margaret Thatcher dancing across a map of the UK whilst notes float about her as she wiggles in front of a wind-machine has to be praised for its tongue-in-cheek humour.

The plot is a little thin; an assistant at the television studio, Catty, dies after slipping on the floor, and we are treated to the time before her death, witnessing the interweaving characters who put their all into the studio that is their lives, and the events after the tragic accident. The characters are as bemusing as they are loveable, made even more fabulous by the impressive number of wigs the company seem to have sourced. Thinking back to the show, I’ve a series of images that keep flashing across my mind, which is partly what makes Squally Showers so enjoyable. There’s little room for intelligent criticism and analysis when there’s a troupe of performers flicking their hips out and pretending to smoke cigarettes whilst wearing moustaches and dancing, no, frolicking about the stage to 80s power ballads. There’s only joy and imagery, and the subtle undertones of tough political times.

Squally Showers only serves to reiterate the creativity and energy that Little Bulb Theatre have so committed themselves to in previous shows. This latest offering certainly won’t be to everyone’s liking (there’s a distinct lack of live music, and the slight airy-fairy dancing might grate for some), but for those willing to let loose and enjoy some giggly playfulness they’ll be well rewarded. A small commentary on 80s England and the political unrest, coupled with the news and weather as an integral form of communication to the nation sees this production lifting the spirit and acting as a reminder that theatre doesn’t always have to make sense or be serious; there’s method to the frolics and bemusing plots.

Squally Showers is playing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until 24 August. For more information and tickets, see the Edinburgh Fringe website.