Pop Mashup: Happy Birthday Doctor!

The publicity for this show looks very professional and the concept promising. Unfortunately the reality did not live up to the hype. This advertised  “mash up of Harry Potter, Doctor Who and the Grumpy Cat” widely missed the mark in a number of ways.

The cross references to pop culture were few and far between and were unsubtle. The few songs in the show had modified lyrics that were generally not funny and the songs went on for far too long. Quite a lot of dialogue was unintelligible due to thick accents, poor voice projection or drowned out by music or sound effects, especially in the Nyan cat computer sequence.

The performance area was tiny, like most festival venues, and this lack of space was made worse by having a blow up Tardis, the size of a phone box, taking up almost a third of the stage, which was hardly referred to.

This production did not look or sound like a show that has been staged before (Melbourne Fringe 2013).

Shirley Jensen