AN explosive new take on the gunpowder plot is aiming to blow audiences away when it comes to Scotland.
The extremely camp and irreverent version of the Guy Fawkes story has already won awards for its comedy content if not for its historical accuracy.
“It’s extremely silly because it’s just about making people feel good,” Belfast-born actor and writer Tom O’Kelly told the Sunday National. “It’s not there to make you think about how bleak the reality of life is. We’re just wanting to give people a good time and provide a bit of an escape from reality. We want to cheer audiences up because it is so hard to be alive right now.”
An early version of Remember, Remember! won the Glitch Award at the Lambeth Fringe last year and then won a grant from the Pleasance’s Charlie Harthill Fund to bring the show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer.
“People have come in the worst mood and left with a smile on their faces,” said O’Kelly.
Asked to describe the show, he said: “Musical theatre meets Eurovision meets Nicki Minaj a little bit. Oh, she’s cancelled. Well then, S Club Seven.”
The team behind the show freely admit they knew nothing much about the Gunpowder Plot before they started writing and haven’t done much research since.
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” said O’Kelly.
The show is loosely based on the mastermind behind the plot, Robert Catesby, and his relationship with Fawkes as well as James VI and I.
Fawkes, in this version of the tale, bears a similarity to the odious Prince Charming in the Shrek movies.
“Guy Fawkes was just the one that provided the gunpowder so we have created what the relationship would look like between someone who is the brains and someone who is the face,” explained O’Kelly.
The team have also taken the stories of James VI and I’s attraction to men and run with them.
“We absolutely capitalised on that little modicum of evidence to put him in a pair of pink bloomers and bows,” O’Kelly said.
The four members of the cast are all actor/writers and worked together on the Fringe favourite, News Revue, before deciding they’d like to write and perform a full show together.
The result, said O’Kelly, is something for everyone.
“I would say the humour that I bring to the to the table is very absurd and a bit weird, whereas someone else is a bit more Monty Python and someone else is a bit more Gemma Collins,” he explained.
“I know everyone says this but there’s really something for everyone here, whether you laugh at an intelligently layered joke or you laugh at Alison Hammond or you laugh at pie in the face kind of humour, I think you will be satisfied, so long as you’re over 18.”
When the team first applied to appear at the Lambeth Fringe they still had no script.
“We had a title and rough outline but we’d prioritised getting a picture taken for our poster rather than writing the script which is kind of important,” said O’Kelly. “If you book a venue then you have to bring something but there’s nothing like the pressure of time.”
To their surprise they won the best show award, then were offered a short run to coincide with Bonfire Night at the Old Red Lion Pub and Playhouse in London which made them wonder if they should apply for the Edinburgh Fringe.
“We were like ‘maybe we can actually do this’ so we applied and won the Charlie Harthill and we still cannot believe it,” said O’Kelly.
“But then we were like ‘We owe it to this show to make it really good’ and winning the Charlie Harthill meant we were financially able to book rehearsal studios for a week to develop it.”
He explained: “The show was always funny but it went from us being just four hooligans wanting to have a good time to deciding to refine and make the storyline a little bit better.”
The music has also been developed as people told them there were so many catchy little tunes in the show.
“If I do say so myself, I think the music is pretty good,” said O’Kelly.
He and the other cast members, Lucy Buncombe, Ross Tomlinson and Kluane Saunders “can’t wait” for the Fringe to begin.
“I’m so buzzing for Edinburgh,” said O’Kelly. “We’re going on Saturday and my birthday’s on Friday so no promises as to what state I’ll be in on the train there but I will recover valiantly.
“We can’t really believe the opportunity we’ve been given to be in such a wonderful space because we’re in the Dome at the Pleasance with a 5.15pm. slot and we just feel like we are the luckiest people on earth.”
O’Kelly also paid tribute to their director Alex Pritchard.
“He’s been with us from the beginning and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is married to one of our cast members,” he said.
Remember, Remember! runs from August 5-30 (not 17th, 24th) at the Pleasance Dome.
