When I see something advertised in the style of 'melodrama and lurid gothic horror' I often get uneasy for reasons different to the promised depravity. Its terribly easy to miss out the precise balance between good and just plain cheesy. This play however achieved something very astounding and unexpected. It was a sexy, wonderfully degenerate and fantastically hilarious work of theatre. The more I think about it the more I like it. It is the tale of how a Catholic girl returns to her recently deceased fathers home to find the vulture-like women that surround him conspiring over his barely cold corpse. She gets seduced by the dark world that is her life, a world of sin and punishment, until she revenges herself upon the women. I was genuinely shocked to find out that this show was an original script written by someone so young, a 17 year-old by the name of Billy Barrett. He worked in collaboration with the equally young and fantastic cast to bring to life a piece of work that should and could be challenging Sweeney Todd for popular supremacy of the genre. If you feel discouraged by the idea that a young man has been inspired by the weekly Victorian serial booklets, the Penny Dreadfuls, do not be! This is not the petulance and angst that you see in most people expressing lurid gothic horror. This is a perfectly paced, balanced, well understood and deliciously sordid work of art. The cast has perfectly understood how to perform gothic melodrama with every role being shatteringly good. They make it over the top but somehow manage to prevent themselves becoming cheesy overused caricatures. Each is a perfect balance of twisted personalities which are not just flung about, but all combine to fill the story with the disturbing charm it shouts about.Because of the nature of the genre, it is short term entertainment, it wont leave you with long lasting messages to live your life by, it just gives you thrills and pleasures that you can only get from the stage. A great and original piece of black comedy, supremely executed.
