The Oxford University Light Entertainment Society – I mean no disrespect – is undeniably nerdy. Beards abound, as do comedy German accents, onstage and off, and I’d be surprised if there was a single person in the room who wasn’t au fait with most of the Discworld oeuvre. That said, I am too, and if you know at heart you’re not too cool for Terry Pratchett then Villainy may well be worth a look.
The Society is a charitable organisation and often performs in local schools, and at times I wondered if the brand of humour in this script by Fabienne Styles might work better on a slightly younger, less jaded audience. Nonetheless, there were still a number of genuine laughs; one mad scientist bemoans the state of the graduate job market, claiming to have turned to the powers of evil after being rejected by Glaxo-Smith-Kline; and pose-pulling superhero Captain Protector (Martin Corcoran) describes himself as a ‘defender of the innocent – especially if they’re good-looking’. His assistant Mindy (Sasha McKenna) was quietly hilarious, acquiescing seemingly without objection to a surreal S&M relationship with a man whose previous sidekick asked uncomfortable questions such as ‘why do I have to use the whip?’
I’m told the production features ‘six and a half’ original songs, one of which is a winning adaptation of the traditional folk song ‘Spanish Ladies’ bewailing the loss of a broken death-ray. Chorus number ‘The Good Guys Always Win’ is perhaps best summarised as charmingly rickety, though in their defence many a rhyme between ‘Ivy’ and ‘blithely’ gets a star all by itself. Elsewhere Jonathan Sims as Satan demonstrates the full capacity of his sinister eyebrows, and opens the show with a sympathy-for-the-devil themed tango duet which looks set to be instantly engaging.
Sustaining interest is a possible issue – the jokes have an approximate hit-rate of 50%, and I’m not sure how long it will take for the zaniness to wear slightly thin, but for twenty minutes at least it was more endearing than annoying. A scene about politically correct anarchists (I think) fell quite heavily flat, a victim both of acute standing-in-a-line syndrome and a terrible acronym, but to their credit a later running joke about ‘W.A.N.K.E.R.S.’ succeeds against all the odds.
In preview the plot lacked coherence, but in a full production with scenes in order I imagine this problem will solve itself. The humour would benefit from being more deadpan, and physicality was frequently unfocused and static; but to take this production too seriously as drama would be to miss the point. It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s for charity, and if I was fifteen I’d probably have loved it. But for a post-Pratchett cynic, it still manages to be at least lightly entertaining.
3 stars
Villainy is at the Wadham Moser Theatre, 9th March- 11th, 7.30pm
