Urinetown

Urinetown is all about the control of public toilets!

Urinetown

by Sound Ideas Theatre Company, at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 8 April 2016

Urinetown is an unlikely, even unfortunate, name for a musical, but this
show addresses the price of water after a disastrous drought, state-supported big business raising the cost of going to the toilet and how people finally rebel.

It absolutely fizzes throughout, revelling in a postmodern setting with the exuberant company in mixed period costumes. The well-played music is eclectic (jazz and gospel among genres), songs are fiery and punchy and the whole thing is a gigantic parody of musicals, love stories, politics and theatre itself.

The inspirational Sound Ideas Company have secured the East Anglian premiere for this wonderfully dark tale with a moral. Jon Bennet is the sinister, leather-clad police officer/narrator; Mark Wells the stuffed shirt big boss. April Nash is the little girl whose story book fantasy the whole thing may be.

Joseph Betts, Chris Barrett, Daisy Wilson, Jake Champion and Genevieve Plunkett as the boss’s daughter who joins the protesters lead a strong ensemble in this brilliantly crafted comic nightmare where ‘everyone uses public amenities to take care of private business,’ but private business owns the amenities.

Thoroughly recommended.