Two Day Play Competition “Best Script” winners Nic Gorman and Paul Glubb make no apologies for the lack of polish in their show The Glorious Sky Awesomes—in fact the jocular duo utilise every technical hiccup or costume malfunction to squeeze more laughs from the audience. And while the improvisation is for the most part organic, a few of the ‘spontaneous’ gags seem a little contrived or perhaps just stale. Using a series of flashbacks, non-linear timescales and blatant reinvention of history, Glubb and Gorman spin a rocket-fuelled tale of the space race à la Stanley Kubrick.
With only two actors playing various roles, some shared, some even played simultaneously, the Lead Hat lads manage to get all the good stuff in there with a little (creative) editing: Wernher von Braun/Dr Strangelove, a very Tom-Cruise-in-Top-Gun-esque John Glenn, Yuri Gagarin and Russian space dog Laika’s untold cross-species romance, Bohemian Grove’s pagan rituals and policymaking, a free lovin’ pants-round-his-ankles JFK (the stand-out character), and the Baikonur Cosmodrome/research centre for the creation of a subservient army of ape-men. All this kicked off with a child sacrifice—most excellent.
Being a sucker for all things analogue, I was charmed by the haphazard soundtrack of LPs (a list of those used is available at BATS throughout the production), and though the on-stage vinyl exchanges began to lose their appeal after one too many “hilarious’ mishaps, the overall effect adds a touch of old-world allure.
If you ever studied the space race (and thought it lacked comic zest), watched Dr Strangelove (and enjoyed it), or delighted in Dylan Moran’s “Euro Trash” gag, scrounge behind the couch cushions and cobble together $13 for The Glorious Sky Awesomes ($14 if you want to get a BATS mixture, which I would highly recommend).
The Glorious Sky Awesomes
written and performed by Lead Hat (Nic Gorman and Paul Glubb),
directed by Greg Cooper
At BATS, 27 April – 1 May 2010, 9.30pm