Dead Hard review: a messy fun alternative to traditional Christmas panto
For you if:
You’re keen for a very different Christmas show
You love a smutty joke
Not for you if:
You’re after high art and minimal dildos
With the heated debate over whether "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie dominating discussions for the last decade, it's surprising that this festive concept hasn't been attempted before. No fear, COLAB is here to deliver a "drag parody panto" version of the Bruce Willis action flick.
The Yippee Theatre production is held in COLAB's new venue, the corporate-looking COLAB Tower in Southwark which makes for a convincing immersive location for the office Christmas party which kicks off the film and show. As audience members, we began as office party guests, nervously hoping to avoid being selected for risqué party games. Some attendees were chosen to be "terrorists" and were taken aside to learn heist techniques before storming our party and taking us hostage. We were then seated along a stage to watch the main performance.
This production is panto first, drag second and immersive third. The audience were game and the actors did a great job of whipping them up. It follows Die Hard's plot almost scene-by-scene, featuring detonators, gender bending and and traditional pantomime calls of "oh no he didn't!" and "behind you!" throughout. The immersive aspects included the opening party and some creative theatrical elements that are COLAB productions: an action figure on the ceiling represented crawling through building vents, a spectacular Christmas montage crossed various genres and decades, and an energetic finale encouraged audience participation.
The talented cast carried the show: Alex Dowling perfectly captured John McClane's hyper-masculine New Jersey accent, while Jacqui Bardelang landed every toxic masculinity joke as Sgt. Powell/Towel. Calum Robshaw skillfully alternated between playing a bumbling, oddly endearing German terrorist and a bold, no-nonsense Holly. Toby Osmond's high-camp, sparkly-jacketed Hans Gruber (spelled "Hands Grubber" in this version) made for a deliciously boo-able villain.
All this being said, the word "chaotic" came to mind upon entering and remained appropriate throughout. The concept of a Christmas party led by a cocaine-fueled megalomaniac is a great situation for immersive theater, but there weren't enough actors to fully engage the large audience. While the limited immersion didn't particularly detract from the experience, it was disappointing that three fully visible stage spaces weren't available for exploration. The cast worked hard to address staging and timing issues, though sometimes drawing attention to them made the problems more apparent. I was hoping that by the time we were in the more traditionally staged section of the performance, we would land in more structured, cosy, switch-off-and-lets-be-told-a-story experience, but the lack of microphones made it difficult to follow dialogue and some lines lost their punch. While Britain has a rich tradition of low-budget, deliberately messy drag shows, this seemed unintentionally disorganized.
The humor was mixed with the ratio of excellent jokes to tired cheesy ones didn't quite land - as much as I love the raunch, there was a point where I wondered if I needed to see another adult toy.
As a general note: There are more dildos in this production than you can shake a dildo at.
All of this being said, I don't think this was a production designed to be profound. There were some nice plot points towards the end, including a pretty apt coupling up twist if you know the film. The audience was kept in good spirits, there was a pleasant rowdiness and ultimately this is a fun alternative to a traditional panto if you're leaving the kids at home.
