Nicked

Nicked at High Tide Festival 2011,

The Cut, Halesworth

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 3rd May 2011

Halesworth’s High Tide Festival incubates new work and this year they surpass themselves with Nicked, a brave, innovative musical about last year’s still-unbelievable formation of the Coalition Government.

Dramatised from the unlikely material of Cameron, Clegg, Brown, Cable, Laws, Miliband, Balls, Osborne and politicos wheeling and dealing in the days after 2010’s inconclusive election, it works.

It’s being tried out in Halesworth, with fresh angles added as news breaks, scenes are still evolving. Last May’s events are fresh in people’s minds, so it has a contemporary feel with enough distance to be safe to laugh at.

Richard Marsh produced book and clever lyrics: ‘are you a man or a focus group?’, songs about proportional representation (at one point sung by Clegg to lull his baby to sleep) and cracking jokes about fairness and political reality.

Natalia Sheppard composed quality music from rock to beatbox. Pia Furtado’s unique choreography sets suited politicians dancing bizarrely, adding to the absurdist impact.

The 75 minute show doesn’t take itself too seriously, revelling in self-parody, satire and pastiche – ideal components of political musical. Perhaps a second half of continuously updated political shenanigans would make it viably full-length. Worth seeing locally now; it will blossom nationally.

David Porter