If you are looking for a funny family show, Cabin Fever by Fresh !nk Theatre Company at theSpace @ Sugeon's Hall is a show where kids will get the jokes (most of them) and adults can enjoy themselves without any sense of compromise or dumbing down.
We get to meet the most annoying woman in the world
The concept is simple enough – an 11-hour flight from London to LA. The set is simple enough – two chairs to become airline seats for writer/performers Aurelia Harris-Johnstone and Beth Miles to sit on.
Something that is not so simple is that the actors play all of the passengers, who at each aircraft chime, instantly switch characters. Without costumes or makeup, the we know which characters are which simply by a mannerism, or a particular smile, or by the time half a sentence has been uttered.
The comedy is observational, with droll character studies, career tensions, and the clever ironic subtext that develops as we (and the characters) get to know each other.
Although most of the dialogue is between the two passengers seated next to each other, there is also farcical interaction between the rows, professional tensions and gossip about flight crew who remain off-stage. There are witty and well-timed parodies of the irritations of airline flight, judicious use of recorded audio, and the script also includes a major story arc in which lives will be changed forever. And we get to meet the most annoying woman in the world.
I don’t know if TV execs look for new talent anymore, but these girls would be a shoo-in for a development meeting about a prime-time family TV comedy.
