Low Down

This review comes with a warning. This is an acquired taste, and requires a certain mindset, to enjoy it. This is not a play, as such. It is perhaps closest to pantomime, though, if anything, it is even sillier. Mentioning Bram Stoker is a mistake. Mentioning Dracula is probably a mistake. This is a play about a play about a bouncy castle. It is one you see with a group of friends, in a raucous state of mind. It is a play you see without expecting much. But, given all that – this production is pretty fun.
 

Review

Like Bouncy Castle Hamlet and Bouncy Castle Macbeth before it, this is a slightly raucous, pantomime-style production of Dracula on a full-scale bouncy castle, which rises – inflating impressively quickly – to the appropriate sinister music at the beginning. Though this is, in fact, quite an impressive effect, the rest of the production is much simpler, relying on innuendoes, one-liners and bouncing to get laughs.

There is no doubt, however, that the audience were enjoying themselves. The production, corpsing and confusion notwithstanding, got a commendable audience reaction, and created an atmosphere of silliness which meant that even the most ridiculous lines, appallingly trite when considered in the cold light of day, served to heighten the atmosphere of surreal humour.

I actually rather enjoyed it. Suspending both disbelief and cynicism for a while, it is actually quite good fun watching people just having a good time, messing about with a play, on a bouncy castle.

The wrong state of mind could certainly render the show torturous; this is not something to be taken seriously, or even really seen with a mindset anything other than wide-openness. Here’s the test. If you are childish, silly, drunk or otherwise giggly enough to find “I’ve got a big... schloss” funny, then you are on the right level to see it. Sounds like criticism, but the audience on the night I saw it were on that very level and by all accounts seemed to enjoy themselves greatly. One to see with an open mind.
 

Reviewed by N Woolf 6 August 2008

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The Strolling Theatricals