Lorna Irvine reviews A Play, a Pie and a Pints 250th production.
Penned by, as announced in the cheerfully irreverent introduction by David MacLennan, ''a bunch of Commie bastards'', this is PPP in a similar vein as the triumphant political panto Alice In Poundland, or the celebrated satirical cabaret Jean Jacques Rousseau Show—it does, of course, share some writers.
It's a seamless flurry of agitprop songs, delicious satire and poignant home truths. Catrin Evans, yet again, proves what a terrific director she is, with the Queen's imperious walkabout into the audience before descending into a Sex Pistols parody proving a highlight.
Marxism and The Marx Brothers co-exist happily here (even Engels sports a Groucho Marx costume), with the targets right on the nose each time. MacLennan's band of merry subversives- Dave Anderson, George Drennan (fetching in a straw boater) Poundland's Cat Grozier, the wonderful Kirstin Mclean and Brian James have an absolute ball with the material, and the songs are full-throated calls to arms; underpinning the pot shots at Cameron, fat-cats and general bigotry is a sense of simmering dissent. The finale Get Them Out is sung with such ferocity I had a tear in my eye.
With, according to recent statistics, one in six children now living in poverty in Britain and bankers' and MPs' massive bonuses showing no signs of dying out any time soon, Demons' righteous indignation is both effective and infectious: a shame the cast seem to be preaching to the converted.
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