The Donkey Show (Proud Camden)
The Donkey Show purports to be an immersive disco version of Shakespeare‘s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But it’s really not that. It’s a madcap gig, with one or two moments of acting and a handful of vague echoes of the bard’s fairy love story. Mainly it’s just a chance to dance like John Travolta while drag queens zoom past on roller skates and bare-chested acrobats twist through hoops and shimmy up shiny poles.
Taking place in one room at Proud nightclub in Camden, The Donkey Show is all about the tunes. In Randy Weiner and Diane Paulus’ wacky creation – a hit in America and back in London following a 15 year hiatus – there’s no dud. Sung by the cast, you can funk out to "Car Wash", "It’s Raining Men", "We Are Family", "Je t’aime…moi non plus" and the likes of Barry White. I would estimate there’s a song roughly every three minutes.
The disco classics provide excellent cover for the fact that the narrative – if you can even call it that – is nigh-on impossible to follow. As far as I could make out, Oberon owns the club. Dmitri, Helen, Sander (read Lysander) and Mia (read Hermia) work in, or possibly just frequent the place and over one night of epic drug taking – a huge syringe is brought out more than once – everyone gets a bit confused, dresses up as donkeys, dances non-stop and then, I think, everything is OK again.
Basically, if you don’t know A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you’re not going to know it any better after watching this. I have seen the play a fair few times and I had difficulty working out what the hell was going on. But the fun here is not in paying attention to the story. In fact, I’d say that if you came out knowing anything about what actually happens, you’ve missed the whole point of The Donkey Show. This is about enjoying a bit of '70s glamour: curled hair, sparkling dresses, fake eyelashes and rippling pectoral muscles.
The cast of fairies – all men in tiny hot pants and trainers that flash – are buff, perky and put on some excellent acrobatic shows. They mix with the crowd and risk getting manhandled by those punters determined on taking full advantage of the open bar. At just over an hour, the piece is slight and at the end there’s definitely no time to let the dancing continue. I felt a little cheated by this: if you’re going to create a club this fun and wacky, at least let people party on a little longer than when the ‘story’ ends.
Diego Pitarch’s costume and set designs are brought into their own with the bright, UV lighting, but at times the music was so loud, it was impossible to hear what the characters were actually saying. Ryan McBryde’s direction focused a lot on one or two great set pieces, but there wasn’t enough work done to make sure we were all watching the right thing at the right time.
If you don’t like booming bass, glitter, scantily clad men and women or flares, then The Donkey Show isn’t for you. But if you’re looking for a good, albeit brief, time dancing crazily to some classic tunes, while some people monkey about in weird costumes around you, then you’d be an ass to miss this.
The Donkey Show runs at Proud Camden until 21 August.
