A pure and exhilarating romp of a good time.
I’ve rarely been compelled to go back and see a troupe again in the one run, but I certainly will be with Baby Wants Candy.
The show starts with a bang; this is a troupe know how to whip an audience up. With their late-night slot appealing to a slightly-tipsy audience it may not be particularly hard but all the same the whooping and hollering they get as they mount the stage is perhaps telling of what is to come. This is where I’ll suggest a little homework; they get straight down to it, taking suggestions from the audience on a title. Previous shows, they say, have been titled along the lines of “Mary Poppins Has Ebola!” and “Trump Goes to Hogwarts.” Perhaps think up a suggestion before you come, because blink and you’ll miss it. The whole show is based around this one suggestion, unlike other troupes who take a whole host of ideas to build their show. Personally I love this approach – get down to meaty stuff as quick as possible.
This was the point of the show I got most nervous, the audience dredged up the familiar pile of smutty and poop-related titles that one might expect from a night-out crowd. We ended up, by virtue of a cheer-off, with the title “Beauty And The Sausage Feast.” However, their creativity in turning this uninspiring title into something magnificently funny and cleverly subverted was what turned them in my mind from good a troupe, to a fantastic one. They turned the story into one of Belle, who comes from a town of vegans, going to the Beast’s castle not for love but in the search of cured meats. Hilarity ensues. With a number of false endings and twists and turns they succeed in not getting trapped in the well-known story and instead using it as a jumping off point for their own narrative. It’s perfection!
Their songs are all creative, catchy and well-sung. Each is of its own style, some entirely original and some pastiches of songs from the motion picture. It was so impressive how they managed to steer away from singing the classics; it was all I could think of!
I’ve rarely been compelled to go back and see a troupe again in the one run, but I certainly will be with Baby Wants Candy.
