BY SIMONE M
[star rating = 4/5]
NOW in its 40th year, NewsRevue is back with an all singing, all dancing comedic round-up of this year’s news.
The show opens with a Spice Girls rendition of the great 1990s and fast forwards to how it’s all gone to ‘the toilet’. What follows is an hour long treat of turbo-charged dark-humoured songs and sketches which rip apart politicians and celebrities and lament our plastic world collapsing at the hands of shaggy-haired buffoons.
The cast comprises four young talents as they move faultlessly between sketches. Memorable moments include Althea Burey’s brilliance as booming BoJo, Brett Sinclair’s genius as Melania Trump and wilting Teresa May, Christian James whose beige Jeremy Corbyn is sensational; his Trump impressions trumping the man himself.
Finally, Maya-Nika Bewley is superb, especially as lead Mexican Avocado separated from her beloved America.
NewsRevue’s 100% original interpretations of current affairs have made it not only a Fringe First winner and Perrier finalist but Guinness World Record breaker for the World’s Longest Running Live Comedy Show.
Unless you are an avid TV watcher some references may be lost on you (after all we were promised a review of the News not TV), and some of the filler lines also fall a little flat.
Nevertheless this show is fast moving, entertaining and if you don’t like one sketch the next one is sure to be a hit.
With Director Samuel Hopkins at the wheel and Andrew Linnie as onstage Musical Director, this show offers the perfect prescription before we finally take our seats on the Brexit Rollercoaster.
NewsRevue is a well known springboard for the talented participants, many big names having started their careers on the show before scaling great comedy heights. Alumnae include: Gemma Whelan, Sara Pascoe, Zoe Lyons, Bridget Christie, Pippa Evans, Alistair McGowan, Bill Bailey, Reece Shearsmith and Mark Gatiss.
If television news programmes were all like this we’d be a much happier nation! But please let’s have more Trump sketches next year – only for entertainment purposes, I’m not wishing him on anyone.
