The House With No Name
Presented by Calamity Productions.
Just like a Sara Lee Cheesecake, The House With No Name is a truly delicious treat. The cabaret style show by Calamity Productions is a perfect blend of murder mystery and scandal with wisecrack comedy and pop culture satire.
Written and directed by Joshua Snares, the audience is transported into the midst of a 1950s-esque, Cluedo-like mystery. The Count, the infamous forgotten child of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, invites us into his home for a devious dinner party where murder is on the menu. If his ancestry isn’t unlucky enough, he is to be assassinated by one of his friends, as told by Sister April, the psychic nun. Chaos is ensured as the story takes on a witch hunt for The Count’s murderer-to-be.
The show relies heavily on its comical puns but its enthusiastic eight-person cast manage to pull it off. In fact, nearly the entire show had audiences giggling away at its poorly timed comedy and sexual innuendos. Perhaps it was the references to Australian political figures, Sara Lee Cheesecakes and the real Slim Shady but The House With No Name provided a refreshing twist on what is regarded as quite an exhausted theme.
But it was the show’s entertaining choreography and catchy tunes that really gave it the personality it needed amongst all its jokes. Composer Jemma Boyd captivated audiences with her comical collection of rhymes and each song helped to shape and build the characters we were introduced to throughout the show.
Whilst there is room for improvement, The House With No Name was a pleasant surprise hidden amongst the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s abundance of shows. It’s an intimate and humorous show, just hope you make it out alive because as The Count would put it, “there’s no caviar in the ground”.
Words by Bridget Kerry.
Image by Calamity Productions.
The House With No Name is showing at Gluttony (La Petite Grande) as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival March 7-13. Find out more information and book tickets here.
Calamity Productions Facebook.
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