The Albery Theatre, London
from 4th April 2002 for 11 weeks
Based on Heinrich Hoffman‘s dark fairy-tale Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter originally opened in 1998 and last year alone played to an audience of some 80,000 West End theatre-goers. For its 2002 production, David Thomas & Two Pale Boys appear along with the original cast, to provide their own interpretation of the music of Martin Jacques and the Tiger Lillies.
From the moment David Thomas appears through a trapdoor from under the floorboards, his considerable physical stature and glowering presence possess the stage. There are a number of giggling children in the audience and I can’t help thinking of the time Pere Ubu appeared on Roland Rat (the cloth-eared rodent himself declaring: “And now… from America, maaa friends…. Pere Ubu…”) in some bizarre twist of scheduling that brought the sound of the Avant Garage into the homes of unsuspecting watchers of daytime TV.
Not that there’s anything bizarre about the casting of David Thomas & Two Pale Boys in Shockheaded Peter. Although their sound is very different to the Tiger Lillies’, it’s difficult to imagine any other group who could fit the bill and still be individual enough as to make their mark with such style. As the musical score and accompanying narration form a large part of the show, the band’s impressionistic take on Jacques’ music allows them to add sinister nuances all their own. Trumpeter Andy Diagram and guitarist Keith Moline weave multiple threads of electronically manipulated brass and guitar-string triggered midi-sounds, while David Thomas’ melancholy melodeon and bewildering yet beautiful vocal give the music a surreal dark ambience and subtlety that makes the Tiger Lillies’ soundtrack seem two-dimensional by comparison.
Thomas himself (in his trademark red butcher’s-apron) is a much scarier monster-beneath-the-floorboards than Martin Jacques’ could ever hope to be. When he loses his temper with the MC (Julian Bleach) during stand-out-song “Johnny-Head-In-Air”, he casts him such a look of glaring venom that a shudder passes through the audience, quieting children and adults alike. He is also very funny. He refuses to leave the stage at the end of one song and instead keeps that final note going, rattling the rafters, and looking down like a an immovable object at the perspiring MC who is trying, futilely, to push his great mass offstage. During the finale, he takes off his bowler hat and sings into it, moving his wrist to make his voice wah-wah like he’s playing a trumpet., a fitting fanfare ending for the so-called “Elephant Terrible.”
The set itself is pure Gothic fairy-tale. Weirdly diminishing perspectives, doorways as likely to disgorge puppets as people, waves as well as flames and little jets of tears shooting far enough into the audience as to reach the third row. The humour is deliciously dark. Tales of childhood doom descending on each in turn. From the boy who sucked his thumb to the one who enjoyed his cruelty to animals (MC: “I rather liked him… a boy should have a hobby after all… I know I did…”) and the one who flew too high on the arm of an umbrella to the long-nailed, scruffy- locked nightmare of Shockheaded Peter himself. Literally, a fantastic night out….
-Sean Kitching-
