War of the Worlds (On a Budget) from Lamphouse Theatre, at Pleasance Courtyard, Upstairs draws on fringe festivals’ long history of low-budget, semi-amateur, small-cast shows to excellent effect. With a cast of two, one onstage and one (mostly) offstage, alongside a host of creative props, puppets, and audience interactions, this charming production makes an excellent start to a festival afternoon.
This musical comedy adventure pulls inspiration from H.G. Wells’ famous and oft-reinvented novel, The War of the Worlds. Whether you are a science fiction fan or not, you’re likely aware of the story’s plot outline: a Martian invasion of Earth leads to chaos and destruction, but they are conquered by Earth’s diseases. This fringe performance anachronistically plays on this source material, spanning the late 1800s (when the novel was published) to the late 1900s (when the Mars Rovers landed). A single onstage performer embodies, in loose comedic sketches, numerous characters including the citizens of Woking, England; the Triffids (though they’re never mentioned by name); the underwritten wife (in this performance, named Claire after an audience member), Mars, the Prime Minister, the citizens of London, and the Heat Ray. The performer is backed up by the offstage narrator, who also tidies the stage, manages the lights and sound mixing, wrote the script, and created the several props.
Most impressively, the many props are obviously handcrafted. A running joke consists of the show’s ‘low budget’ nature, which includes a reference to production meetings discussing projections to create the frightening Heat Ray, which, ultimately, is embodied by a glittery red foam hat and a song. In modern productions, though, projecting images onto a screen has a negligible cost, so one marvels at the time, effort, and expense of the physical items inhabiting the stage.
Lamphouse describes themselves as a devising company using clown, music and improv to devise ‘epic stories in intimate settings’ and this certainly holds true for War of the Worlds (On a Budget). Though some aspects of the scripted performance are a little too cheekily self-aware, the gentle audience interactions bring the show back to earth and allow a conversational flow between stage and seats. Audience members are never harassed for entertainment, and the performers always bring the jokes back to themselves and the script.
Lamphouse Theatre’s War of the Worlds is funny, genuine, clever, and even feminist. Don’t miss it before it leaves the Edinburgh stages for the season.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
