Review: TROLLs-Online, Cockpit Theatre

How to critique a show that tries hard but simply doesn’t pass muster? Do you give points for enthusiasm and overlook lack of skill? Make allowances for inexperience or hold all productions up to the same standards? Not every show has the budget to draw top-tier talent, but if you put on a show for a paying audience, shouldn’t you be required to reach a minimum level of competence?

Perhaps it’s fairest to judge such projects on their own terms. TROLLS-Online is described as a “musical showcase” so maybe it should be treated as a work-in-progress. But in his programme notes, writer and performer Tim Thomas positions his show as a direct descendent of Greek drama, and says “I want to imbue the piece with as much wit and flair that I can muster and to employ some satire and irony to add spice”. If nothing else, there’s no lack of ambition in Tim’s hopes for his work.

What does the term “online troll” mean to you? I think of anonymous social media bullies spewing bile across the internet, persecuting strangers and celebrities alike, inciting division and joyfully polluting the digital oceans. A highly suitable topic for dramatic investigation, I thought as I offered to review the show. But TROLLS-Online seems to have a rather different definition: in this narrative the “trolls” are greedy bankers, blackmailers, and of course… Can you guess? Yes, that’s right – the Ministry of Defence. Each of these shady organisations make use of an Influencer, proffering brown envelopes stuffed with cash in exchange for their endorsement of their dodgy schemes.

The victims of these “trolls” include techy gamer Frank (Tyler Ephraim), who loves animals (because his dad did too) and refugee Gaia (Vik Lak) who’s narrowly escaped drowning in the English Channel after fleeing war in a distant land. I was itching for a cameo from Sweller Braverman, perhaps singing “Fly with me and take a gander – you’re gonna love your new life in sunny Rwanda!”. No such luck.

Frank has a particular fondness for blue whales, and gets very distressed – proper head-in-hands upset – when he thinks about all the bad things humans have done to them. Gaia, meanwhile, is bereft and lonesome. Despite her instinctive suspicion of strangers (there’s a vague mention earlier of someone pulling a knife on her) the pair fall in love. Ephraim and Lak are the reasons for the two-star rating (one star each). Without them there’d be hardly anything to recommend the show – they at least have strong voices, and their love duet is quite sweet.

Elsewhere, the music is plodding, the lyrics banal, the satire witless and the performances – committed though they undoubtedly are – would make the cast of a primary school Nativity roll their eyes in embarrassed despair.

In the end, the “trolls” are defeated by the good characters taking a deep breath and blowing them away. Yes, really. And here they also confusingly revert to the more common understanding of their title, whiningly proclaiming their “harmless” status as pathetic bedroom warriors.

So, that was my heartfelt attempt to give an honest assessment of a poor production. How did I do? Feel free to judge…

Written by: Tim Thomas
Directed by: Marcus Fernando

TROLLS-Online played at Cockpit Theatre and has completed its current run.