The Perils of Love and Gravity is a humorous love-story-cum-fairy-tale for adults, told by a verbose, stylised, rapid-fire narrator and beginning with proverbial ‘Once upon a time…’
This was the tale of a beautiful girl (Misha) who lived in the house built by her father - who was not an engineer. For reasons too complicated to go into here, but basically to do with making the most of a tiny patch of land, the house ‘was narrower at the bottom and wider at the top than any house had ever been’.
Misha lives in the house alone except for Graeme the butler. She falls in love and becomes engaged to be married three times: her first fiancé (Thomas) is killed on the battle field (although his body is never found); the second dies in a reaping race (what else?) and the third is eaten by a freshwater shark in the river that by this time runs through her garden. While she stays home ‘day in, day in’ grieving the loss of each fiancé in turn, the house sinks a little further into the ground.
The plot twists and turns leaving questions hanging, so much so that on the way out we are handed an Epilogue that thankfully explains all!
With dialogue that was fast-paced, witty, wry and dry - perhaps somewhere between Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward with a bit of Python madness thrown in for good measure – this was a lot of fun. There was music: Graeme plays the piano (very well too) and two of Misha’s suitors serenade her on the guitar (with the same song!). There is also humorous use of a slide projector and audience participation – what more could you want? A great bit of entertainment for adults who love a good story.
Show runs until Aug 27th at 7.30pm
Ticket prices: £5 - £8