It’s Headed Straight Towards Us (Vulcan 7) - Tour / Park

You obviously saw Neville’s Island too 😛

Can’t remember the name of the play that he did at the Soho Theatre a year or two back but it had pretty terrible reviews (I had booked for the previews but it got cancelled and I didn’t bother to rebook when it got rescheduled)

That poster isn’t doing it any favours, I’ll probably pass on this.

Booked this weeks ago on the basis of it being half of the Young Ones.

No doubt I'll be disappointed as a mid 40s male that they aren't the Neil and Vyvian of my pre-teen years but what the hell, its probably my last chance to see them together.

Going tonight, looking at the Kings website I'm going to be very lonely.

35 - Vulcan 7 - Kings Edinburgh

On the Icelandic set of the film Vulcan 7, Gary and Hugh meet for the first time since an incident involving Alan Bennett and some custard. Hugh is an actor finally enjoying some success thanks to a minor recurring role in the Vulcan franchise whilst Gary is an Oscar nominee who has drunk away his career - over the course of a day these two actors will attempt to work together, share a trailer, go to the toilet and maybe work out why they have hated each other for over 40 years.



Don't read The Stage review, it spoils the plot points that drive the second half of the show (as do my spoilers below)- you'd be far better approaching it without knowing how its going to play out.

Mmmmmmmm. This isn't very good but then again its not actually bad. Its just so average.

It'll have you chuckling but it the belly laughs are very few and far between. Planer is the career luvvie who has never really achieved much but who finally has some success whilst Edmondson performs a fair chunk of the show in a giant lobster costume as the faded actor who once had it all but who now only has the bottom of a bottle. The only other on stage character is the harassed/frustrated/angry production runner Leela who is well played by Lois Chimimba as she tries to keep the film on track whilst dealing with ice quakes, egos, producers, a former boyfriend involved in the production, her career and two actors who cant stand to be in the same room as each other.

Edmondson wins out in the acting stakes but he's playing the character with the more flashy characteristics and the main laugh of the evening is a great sequence where "Angry Thermidon" (as played by Gary) rolls around the floor unable to stand up because of his ridiculous costume.

And that's a problem - its not character or the script that is getting the laughs, its a grown man in a silly costume failing to stand up. The rest of the script does produce the chuckles but like the Angry Thermidon it fails to catch fire - its not helped by taking a diversion into sentimentality in the last 20 minutes or so when

During the first act I thought the set looked lost on the Kings stage but the second half of the show makes great use of its minimal setting as things start slipping away from our cast.

I liked the ending, its ambiguous enough so that you can read it either way - although personally I'll blame Daniel f***ing Day f***ing hyphen f***ing Lewis for whatever happens.

It does have to be said though it was a complete shocker of an audience this evening - if the place was more than 20% full then a lot of attendees must have been out of their seats sharpish. Thought that Ade and Nigel would attract more people but the complete and utter lack of publicity may have something to do with it. We had a no name cast version of Dracula at the Kings last week and that was heaving, yes it has name awareness but it was also being advertised on bus stops etc, if I didn't look at the Capital website I'd never have known this was on.


Amiably fatigued - 6/10

I don't especially think its a male show - you could do a rewrite of the last 20 minutes and easily have it performed by say French & Saunders.

Its NOT the physical comedy of Bottom. Its just another variation on one of those plays where 2 people sit in a room and discuss what has gone wrong with their lives but in this instance one of them is dressed as a giant lobster.

Nigel Planer has said, on RHLSTP, that he and Ade have rewritten the show and its now called "Its Heading Straight Towards Us" and it had a full readthrough right before lockdown last year.

He also confirmed that they are looking to move it into the West End but without him and Ade as they feel they are too old for the parts in question and that there was maybe too much audience expectation of them being The Young Ones rather than the characters they were seeing in front of them. Sam West and Tony Gardner played the roles in the pre-lockdown readthrough.

This goes on sale today at 10am, rewritten and under it's new name, at the Park Theatre, with Samuel West and Rufus Hound:

parktheatre.co.uk/boxoffice/its-headed-straight-towards-us/207202

I missed this entirely on its first incarnation, and this thread too, but found it when searching to see if there had been any comment on this new production.

It's a curious one. It has a stellar pedigree, written by former Young Ones Ade Edmondson and Nigel Planer, and starring Sam West and Rufus Hound. The premise is that West and Hound are middle-aged actors who knew each other in drama school, their careers have diverged and developed into a mutual antipathy. The two actors are taking part in an action movie being filmed in remote Iceland, and are thrown together in difficult circumstances as the shoot evolves.

It’s a play that is very much about acting, there’s a lot of thespy stuff going on, a lot of classic lines being thrown out and a lot of in-jokes, those about the Menier and the Royal Court might resonate with members of this board more than a general audience. It’s described as a “laugh-out-loud” comedy, but it’s actually sometimes amusing and really not often laugh-out-loud, with frequent points when it’s not very amusing at all, but rather dark about human relationships in the face of existential threat. I didn’t leave the show uplifted.

West and Hound do a decent job in portraying their characters, even if I never completely believed in either of them. Nenda Neururer does a good job of being the go-between, but again a very significant plot development of theirs never really lands.

Enjoyed watching this for the quality of the acting. Money has obviously been spent in developing some of the stage effects, which could be bigger in a different venue. Would not be surprised if they have a go at this in a bigger venue, but it does need some work to tighten up the writing and hone the characterisation.

Advertised at approx 2h, was really a bit shorter than that with the show starting at 7.35 and us out by 9.20. Wouldn’t have minded if this had gone straight through in 1h30 without the interval. Reading the comments above, I'm not sure that the rewrite has added very much.