Cult characters cross paths in quest of comedy

By Narelle Wood

I love the premise of this show: Dr Who meets Harry Potter meets other pop cultural icons all in the name of saving the world. The idea is that on his birthday, Dr Who finds himself making friends with Hermione Granger, and thus begins their journey to prevent the Grumpy Cat from achieving world domination (hopefully reuniting Hermione with Harry along the way).

Ruben Francis‘ portrayal of Dr Who was fabulous and he did appear to be one of the only performances whose acting wasn’t at all awkward. While Grumpy Cat (played by Melinda King) had an amazing singing voice, the sexiness was uncomfortable to watch, not because it was overt but because it was odd.

The endearing minion character Zip (Andrew Cross) really held the show together; partly because his acting was also good and partly because his storyline seemed to be the only one that had continuity. That being said, I’m not a dedicated Dr Who fan, so it was more than probable that there were a few jokes and storyline quirks that went over my head.

There were some very funny moments and some extremely persuasive poignant discussion about the benefits of being a minion. The song parodies were really cute, for the most part both well-selected and well-performed, although again the dancing was awkward and not in a particularly funny way.

I was disappointed that there were only a spattering of other pop-culture references and often these seemed to rely on the obvious, apart from Harry’s wand being a drumstick (the percussion kind not the chicken kind). The Harry Potter references were fairly thin, and for a die-hard fan (which I am), not particularly clever; the brandishing of the wands didn’t even have the appropriate swish and flick. I did however love the My Little Pony moments: they were gold, and the Tardis was also fabulous.

Despite Francis’ great depiction of Dr Who and reasonable performances by the rest of the cast, the show lacked fluidity and the funny moments were random and spread fairly thin: I suggest this is one for hard-core Dr Who devotees.

Venue: The Butterfly Club, CBD
Season: Saturdays at 5pm and Sundays at 4pm until 20th April.
Tickets: Full $23 | Conc $20
Bookings: http://www.thebutterflyclub.com/shows or www.ticketmaster.com.au