Red Dwarf II - Kryten

Red Dwarf, opening night, Kalamunda. Weds 17 March.

Good to see a sizeable house at an opening night, particularly when it's mounted halfway to Betelgeuse.
The numbers were bolstered significantly as a result of the promotional deal with Community Newspapers. It's an excellent deal the ITA have engineered for the benefit of all member clubs, however, it's something of a two-edged sword. The people they invite are not regular theatregoers and it shows! The early part of the show was more memorable for the amount of talking in the audience than the action on stage. People wandering in and out to get more drinks! which was a bit galling for we alcoholics of the general public as there was no booze on offer for us.

Anyway, the show.
Blak Yak have done another very worthy effort at a stage-version of a very popular TV show. There was a certain firstnightishness to it, but I would expect things to polish up rapidly over the next couple of performances.

It's a very "technical" show, having a LOT of sound cues, audio-visual elements, lighting changes, scene changes and costume changes. All of these factors went very smoothly.

I had a bit of trouble hearing the dialogue, particularly when it was happening over a background sound effect, which occurs quite a few times. It's not a huge theatre, but nevertheless the actors could all use a little re-focus on voice projection.

Nick Donald did very well as the lovable slob Dave Lister. I was glad to see he made no attempt to mimic the original's accent, instead opting for his own normal voice but still making the role a success. The slobbiness came through well and essentially he made the role his own.
In contrast, Cat (Chris Thomas) was emulating the TV persona in voice, movement and style, but for me he didn't quite nail it. Could have used a bit more flamboyance. It's a surrealistic part, might as well go totally over the top.
Alex Jones, playing the supremely anal hologram Rimmer, made a fair fist of the job. My only criticism would be that he was just a little too likeable. On TV I find myself wanting to jump down the cathode ray tube and strangle the prick. The pathos of the character was there, but the smug smeg head could use a tad more smugness and smegness.
Jarrod Buttery as the face of the computer, Holly, was damn near perfect. 'Nuff said. Who else would you cast in that part?
Kryten the android was lovely. You don't get quite the physical appearance you might expect, just Scott Northover's face under silver paint, but it never mattered after the first few moments. Another one who really made the role work without trying to clone the original.
Lovely cameos by Melissa Merchant and Julia Dalby.

At the beginning of this rant I mentioned a "firstnightishness". This manifested as a lack of pace in the first half. The script itself is a very clever concoction drawing on many different episodes of the original work and snippets of other works in the genre, and is genuinely rich in laugh lines. But the comic timing didn't quite zing on the night, though it was very close. Halfway through the second half the team had really got it working. I'd like to see it again later in its' run, because I know the show is better than the one I saw. Write off opening night as a dress rehearsal, and now get on with a very enjoyable season.

Cheers,
Jonno.