UCL Shows Review: Comedy Club’s The Curse of King Percival
Source: UCL Comedy Club
Dom Borghino reviews UCL Comedy Club’s latest production.
UCL Comedy Club took to Camden People’s Theatre this weekend as part of the venue’s ‘UCL Takeover’ with another original production: The Curse of King Percival. Written by William Jefferies and Libby Randall, the comedy tells a tale of a king of medieval England wanted dead by the inhabitants of a small village he travels to, all through the lens of a documentary by a disgraced BBC historian. It’s an intriguing subversion of the overdone “ye old-timey parody” gag which kept the story from slipping into realms of high-school Shakespeare productions that other such plays risk doing. But not this one. A cleverly written script deftly lead the audience through an engaging story, its navigation of the play’s many layers providing its actors with ample opportunity to show off its skilfully constructed characters.
Source: UCL Comedy Club
The play’s unprecedented premise produced a good part of its comedy – the meta beauty of it made plain to the audience in the opening monologue by ex-BBC historian Lucy Cumber (Amelia Little) as she introduced the story as a tale from the “history book of histories”. Much of the rest came from its depiction of a story set in the past portrayed through modern language and comedy – nothing new. As to be expected, the play leaned heavily on the trusty comedy failsafe of anachronistic references made in a medieval context, but it did so with such smoothness, and within a story meant to blur lines between modern and “historic” that they came with a refreshing and pleasant self-referential feel to them. Generous servings of onstage homoerotic tension went down a treat, and the ridiculing of religion was appreciated by all blessed to witness. The jokes flew by minute, and nearly all of them landed.
Source: UCL Comedy Club
The entire cast were a real asset to the show. Standouts included Amelia Little, whose consistency on stage enabled her character’s personal subplot to guide the audience through the main plotline, while providing effective intermittent breaks in tone and energy from the rest of the play – a reliable lead, her character’s jokes were well-delivered and done justice; Aymen Aulaiwi, who managed to pull off his two starkly different roles with the ease and elan of a seasoned professional, his excellent characterisation of the two thrust sharply into focus by his remarkable switching from one to the other and back again; Maria Pavlou, who stole any scene she was in – her performance was a joy to behold and I couldn’t look away for fear of missing any of the subtle fleeting choices she made to embellish her character and make her truly the star of the show; Hannah Penn, who was strong in her supporting role and successfully portrayed a multidimensional character all while keeping the laughs up; ‘Greg’ offstage was also brilliant.
The UCL Comedy Club knows what it’s doing at this point, that much is clear, and I will without a doubt be attending their next production, whatever it may be.