Mischief Movie Night - Arts / Tour / The Other Palace

It was a few years ago but I got tickets changed for Heathers for a different date. 

My experience of The Other Palace more recently is that they've changed their policy on exchanges and now won't exchange tickets at all unless you become a 'Friend' for £35. Pretty outrageous really.

Saw tonight’s show, a horror movie called “Eton Mess” starring Henry Shields, Niall Ransome, Matt Cavendish, Bryony Corrigan, Ellie Morris and Charlie Russell. A headmaster plots to stop his ambitious students growing up and becoming leaders… by killing them all (and their horses) and seizing power himself.

Quite brilliantly daft. Can’t believe it’s very nearly three years since the Regent’s Park shows. It’s the only one I’m able to catch unfortunately. They’re missing a trick by not streaming it.

There was a particularly mean interruption by Oscar when Charlie Russell climbed on her ‘horse’ Matt Cavendish’s back. He paused it and really took his time before letting it play out. And then did it again later.

Dawnstar I hesitated when booking opened and it sold out, so while I’d normally sit near the front I had to take a single returned ticket that was only about three rows from the back. I don’t like the heat myself but it felt fine. I wouldn’t worry about it.

On a Friday night we got a horse-based thriller/musical called Dressage To Kill about competing at Olympics, believing in your dreams and some dysfunctional relationships going even to dome darker places.
Gosh, it was a riot, I haven’t laughed so hard it ages!! Henry S, Johnathan and Charlie from the original cast, and Bryony is also brilliant as always.
Wish I could catch more of them but alas the holiday is over..

Not every horse survived unfortunately, no! But two-three-four of them trying to form a full size horse with another one getting in a saddle got us in stitches! But then they could not stop laughing themselves, some falling and heavy-weight lifting was involved too! But what impresses me the most is how they can come up with a musical number and lyrics that actually rhyme and make sense in seconds some of which is way better than what I hear at the elaborated musicals in WE!
Looking forward to more reports

Tonight it was an eighties horror musical called "Sister Axe" that also had to incorporate "The Matrix" to please one kid and a "Shakespearian Multiverse" to please another kid, although weirdly the "Shakespearian Multiverse" kid attracted the compere, Jonathan Sayer's Oscar's attention by displaying the image of a sheep on his phone (Jonathan was as raspingly amusingly perplexed as I was lol).

The only thing I wanted out of tonight was that it be a musical, so I cheered loudly to try to get that and was delighted when it was picked.

Susan Harrison is a maestro for making up tunes, so her innocent young nun's song, "The Whole Wide World in a Space Hopper" was an arm-waving wholesome perfectly rhymed delight, which culminated in her declaring Jesus was present, upon which an audience member cheekily but brilliantly chimed in "Yes I am" lol.

Bryony Corrigan spiced up the wholesome storyline, as a scheming Mother Superior, staging a play about Stretch Armstrong for an old people's home (Harrison performed a Do Wop song, "He's a Stretchy guy," which may have been about Jesus) to raise funds to complete repairs on her Church, which funds may have been sidelined into her personal "slush fund."

When Corrigan randomly revealed she had a "burning UTI," Sayer's Oscar promptly mistook it for an "STI," causing him to get one strike for making a mistake. He said if he got three strikes, he'd have to stop compering, after which he twice mistook "Mother Superior" for "Mother Theresa," resulting in Henry Shields temporarily taking over as Oscar, and ordering Sayer to do an embarrassing but thrilling rap ("Fantastical Ecclesiastical"), which he ended by breakdancing lol.

Anyhow, Shields had to re-enter the storyline 'cos his Irish priest (who used to be in a band and wanted to get his band back together) was part of the storyline, on a quest to discover the secret of Bryony Corrigan's Mother Superior's secret "slush fund," which was not allocated to the Church but her personal account.

As part of his investigation, Shield's priest tasked Niall Ransome's token Matrix character and Matt Cavendish's token Shakespeare actor to give acting lessons to the old people, whereupon a group song, "What will they do?" prompted the reveal that Harrison's innocent nun was the murderer ("It was me"), stabbing Ransome to death with a Space Hopper, whereupon, in an even bigger twist, it turned out that Bryony Corrigan's Mother Superior was "two kinds of mother" to Harrison, having raised her to be a robber and a murderer, and Corrigan herself shot and stabbed Cavendish to death, even as he shouted cod Shakespeare.

Shields's innocent seeming, heavily Irish accented patrician priest now revealed he had already slow poisoned Corrigan's scheming Mother Superior to death with communion wine (causing her UTI) so as to acquire her slush fund to finance his rock band getting back together. "What a guy!" celebrated Sayer's Oscar!

But unfortunately for Shields, the Space Hopper Killer, Harrison, killed him with her Space Hopper: "You only knew the church, I only knew killing!"

Somehow the Matrix dude showed up alive (maybe he only died in the Matrix) to offer the corrupted Harrison a chance at a life in a Shakespearian Multiverse version of the Matrix, with her bestie, fellow innocent Ellie Morris along for the ride.

So ended "a tale told by a band of idiots," with a punk rock song: "Will you Bounce?"

Highlights were Harrison's consummate musical improv skills and childlike innocence joining forces with Corrigan's camp sly eyebrow-arched, purposeful scheming murderousness, along with Sayer's obsession with Mother Theresa and his forced but exhilarating rap.

An easy 4 and a half stars of rolling laughter from me for all this joyful raucous ridiculousness!

Solid fun last night, we had a superhero murder mystery in a (sometimes) active Volcano called Dormant Until Death. Much funnier in the first 35 minutes or so as they figure out what they are doing and then a lot less funnier in the last 10 as they have to make a nominal plot fit to come into an ending.

I like how they end up embracing all of the suggestions, everything makes a comeback though some are more effective than others. Fab cast, all were great. Totally sold out for the run but some day tickets they said at the end. Slightly regretting not booking two nights. Perhaps next run I'll do that.

Ha ha, no bother.

The only person I regret not mentioning is Richard Baker, the musician, who, since it was a musical, probably had to work extra hard, and really was the engine of all the fun (along with Oscar, lol).

The person I suspect you didn't notice I mentioned was Ellie Morris, whose nun character was overshadowed by the other two nuns, who had much bigger and more significant parts. It's improv and I think it's hilarious that you can constantly enlarge your part muscling out everyone else, but since Susan Harrison and Bryony Corrigan were so funny, I think we can forgive them.

Went to this last night by accident!

I had booked Fantastically Great Women, thinking I was booking Sunday night. My mistake, I had booked Saturday night. So we sat in the lobby waiting for doors until door time passed and then we overheard people sitting next to us talking about an improv comedy show, then we realised we had messed up.

Box Office very helpfully found us the final two seats available so we sat in with ZERO expectations.

It was hilarious! Genuinely laugh out loud, jokes ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. Audience appeared to have a lot of regulars, of which I will certainly try to become from now on.

We were treated to a Bond style spy thriller, with some war, pantomime, rom com elements. All of which were mashed together with a sledgehammer. So, so much fun. An unexpected gem for me.