The recent refit of the Jorvik Viking Centre in York cost £5m. John Godber's nonsensical Nordic saga was probably knocked together for about 5p - but it has always been fun to watch Hull Truck making big noises on a little budget.
Big Trouble in the Little Bedroom is a hilarious piece of hokum about a Viking hammer, set to a snappy pop arrangement by John Pattison. It is probably best described as what might happen if Wagner's Ring cycle were serialised in the Beano.
Simple Stan finds his homework project - locating a Viking-styled implement - a great deal easier when the hammer of Thor the thunder god turns up in his bedroom, followed by the deity himself. When Stan relinquishes the tool to the school bully, our puny hero has to prove himself worthy of the hammer while its owner is enslaved by his mum to help around the house.
Godber's idea grew out of his daughter's obsession with Vikings, and a curiosity as to what might happen if one appeared. The result is something all ages can enjoy, though you might need to be under 10 in order to understand it.
The cast of six have a great time behaving like a bunch of kids. Lucy Cullingford's dance sequences are slick and knowingly camp - check out the funky Motown dentists and the Step-tacular line-dance routine. Pip Leckenby's serviceable set offsets the mystery of the fjords with the detritus of a teenage bedroom, so far as such things are possible. Vocals are enthusiastic rather than outstanding, and there's not a live musician in sight - but this is Hull Truck, not the Huddersfield Choral Society.
Of course, if Thor were to suddenly materialise in York, he'd be forced to pose with a group of Japanese tourists. Foreign invasions take quite a different form these days.
At the Hull Truck Theatre, Hull (01482 323638), from Wednesday until May 5.
