George in the Dragon's Den
LAS Productions
Zoo Southside until Monday August 31, 2009
In this inventive and ambitious satire, LAS Productions takes the legend of St George and the Dragon and uses a traditional mummer play to transpose it into our modern today where the monster-slayer ventures into the lair of TV’s venture-capitalist reality show Dragon’s Den.
Within the den lurks a many-headed monster whose fiery breath punctuates never-ending financial
motormouth musings. The update is thoroughly contemporary – St George appears in the guise of an immigrant Polish workman whose lowly status cannot hide his lofty morality. Inevitably he encounters the Princess and, at first suspicious of her intentions, the unlikely knight finally falls for her charms and is cajoled into becoming a contestant in the Den. There he slowly ropes in the fat cat dragon to his doom via the commercial allure of an eternal food production device.
Told entirely in verse with entertaining rhymes aplenty, Louise Seyffert and Bart Vanlaere swap costumes and accents in a show that is in the direct tradition of British agitprop and Theatre Workshop – the sort that was once the bread and butter of past festivals but has become lost in our Mammon-obsessed present. So only one criticism – more songs please.
Review by Nick Awde
Published online at 10:13 on Monday 17 August 2009
http://ed.thestage.co.uk/reviews/571
LAS Productions
Zoo Southside until Monday August 31, 2009
In this inventive and ambitious satire, LAS Productions takes the legend of St George and the Dragon and uses a traditional mummer play to transpose it into our modern today where the monster-slayer ventures into the lair of TV’s venture-capitalist reality show Dragon’s Den.
Within the den lurks a many-headed monster whose fiery breath punctuates never-ending financial
motormouth musings. The update is thoroughly contemporary – St George appears in the guise of an immigrant Polish workman whose lowly status cannot hide his lofty morality. Inevitably he encounters the Princess and, at first suspicious of her intentions, the unlikely knight finally falls for her charms and is cajoled into becoming a contestant in the Den. There he slowly ropes in the fat cat dragon to his doom via the commercial allure of an eternal food production device.
Told entirely in verse with entertaining rhymes aplenty, Louise Seyffert and Bart Vanlaere swap costumes and accents in a show that is in the direct tradition of British agitprop and Theatre Workshop – the sort that was once the bread and butter of past festivals but has become lost in our Mammon-obsessed present. So only one criticism – more songs please.
Review by Nick Awde
Published online at 10:13 on Monday 17 August 2009
http://ed.thestage.co.uk/reviews/571