This production has a distinctly amateurish corny feel about it with some appallingly over-used puns. The acting at times feels like it needs more depth and the singing needs more polish. The puns seemed to get more groans from the audience than laughs, although some of them really seemed to like the show. Those of you who like a pun-tastic show and a light bubble-gum production will love this and may disagree with the reviewer …

With a story like Batman where the public has seen the films before, there is an expectation that this already great script will be worked into a show like this. In this production, the super villains escape from jail and it’s up to Batman to save the day. You know the rest of the supposed script, except there are no acrobatics as this is a costume-heavy low-budget production.

On the upside, the costume designer should be praised for working very hard to get this large cast into really suitable garments, and the cast did try very hard to do well.

Fringe Review: Batman! Holy Spoof Musical Batstravaganza can be seen at St Augustine’s Church on George IV Bridge at 2.50pm until 29th Aug.

Thomas Haywood
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Thomas Haywood is a freelance photographer producing great royalty-free images in Scotland.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. I agree this was a really terrible production, I’m amazed they even got the copyright to do a Batman script. I think the awful jokes were made worse by the fact that I could see that some of the cast were struggling to stop themselves laughing at the lines. The songs were tuneless and were not helped by poor singers and little volume. Sadly they had large audiences who had been lured there by the batman name. My advice is too avoid and save your money.

  2. The two reviewers above seem to have got wholly the wrong end of the stick with this production; as its name suggests ‘Batman: Holy Spoof Musical Batstravangaza’ was intended to be a light-hearted spoof of the well-known Batman series, rather than any ‘Batman Live’ type show (and quite how are aerial acrobatics to be expected at the Fringe?). I thoroughly enjoyed the punilicious performance I went to. Granted if you don’t like bad puns (intended to be groaned at, I think) and high silliness then this isn’t the production for you, but anyone who knows their Batman will love this show, and it is good light entertainment for anyone who doesn’t.

  3. I agree with the first two reviews. This production maybe intended as a spoof, but given that some of the original batman series can be seen as a spoof anyway this show adds nothing. The script was weak (regardless of whether you like bad puns or not) and having the cast laugh at their own jokes was not on. I will give credit to whoever did the makeup and costumes, but the director should make sure his cast work on their delivery and volume (and possibly learn to sing too). I know my batman very well and am sorry to say I did not love this poorly thought through production at all.

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