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Camden Fringe 2023
If you can ignore some humour that should really be consigned to history, the rest of this show is a lot of silly slapstick fun. Summary
Rating
Excellent
You don’t see many sequels on stage, but that’s just what The Defectors have decided to do, apparently after the storming success of the original Defective Inspector. Luckily, in case you missed the first show, they do a quick recap early on. Although that does mean you will miss out on a few clever call back gags thrown in for people who did see the original.
A Stitch in Time follows a similar pattern to the original Defective Inspector. Richard E Copper (Harrison Cole) is the eponymous sleuth, who has, for various reasons, branched out from writing detective novels to staging them. Except it’s not been a huge success and he’s clearly working on a tight budget (which is very much in keeping with the whole Camden Fringe ethos). Back from the first instalment are his two disgruntled supporting actors (Daniel Hemsley and Francesca Eldred), alongside a new addition (Ellie Church). It’s a nice touch to make her a more willing participant than her fellow cast members.
Having felt a standard detective story is a dying fad, Cooper has decided to branch out into sci-fi for his second effort. It’s cheap, it’s cheesy but there’s no doubting there is a lot of fun to be had. It’s also a clever way to keep things fresh and try out some new ideas. The plot is all fairly standard stuff: some time travel to change the past and save the future, a few paradoxes that come with time travel, oh and a dog that can talk and has created the fourth Reich. But the plot really is secondary. It’s the comic writing and acting that makes or breaks this show.
If you’re looking for something that has a message or tackles some meaty topics, this really isn’t the show for you. But if you don’t mind some very stupid gags and actors milking every ounce of the script, then this may well hit the spot. It does feel very much a Marmite show and for every positive review, I’m sure there will be a negative one too. Even though I’m in the positive camp, I still think there are too many Dick (as in short for Richard) gags, and some sexism that is best left in the 1980s. They just feel unnecessary when there is plenty of other good-hearted silliness to keep us amused. And yes, the format is a bit of a mess; it portrays itself as a play written and presented by its detective star, but this idea seems to come and go, as if they forget at times. Tidy all this up, however, and this feels like a show that could easily appeal to a much larger audience.
Very much in the style of The Play That Goes Wrong, a lot of the gags revolve around the cheapness and amateurish nature of it all, along with the attitudes of its actors; Hemsley and Eldred brilliantly show they have no real desire to be there, literally rolling their eyes as they are called upon over and over. Meanwhile Cole’s belief he is the real star and Church’s boundless enthusiasm allows for conflict between the sides. There are misplaced prop gags aplenty, and the whole missing key for the handcuff gag ends with a brilliant payoff.
Having taken in the double bill of Defective Inspector, there feels no reason these shouldn’t be presented as a double bill again in the future. Tidy up the formatting, lose the outdated humour and what you could be left with is a very funny show that is a couple of hours of slapstick fun.
Written by: Harrison Cole
Directed by: Shannon Fox
Lighting design by: Hannah Clancy
Sound design by: Slug Machine
Produced by: The Defectors
Defective Inspector: A Stitch In Time played as part of Camden Fringe 2023. More information about the Defectors can be found here.
