The fantastic poster by Hadley Donaldson showing faces of seven characters arranged around a gnome.The State of Sup­parath has been at war with the demon lord Krunk for ninety years. Finally they have cap­tured him (it?). The sev­en states sit in judge­ment and sen­tence Krunk to a ter­rible pun­ish­ment. In order to enact their decree they send the Sev­en Sons of Sup­parath across the sev­en sec­tions of the state to gath­er the pieces of the legendary dan­ger­ous WINCH OF FATE – which must be assembled before it can be used. Sev­en her­oes set off on an epic fantasy adven­ture quest the res­ult of which will determ­ine the fate of their world.

In clas­sic My Accom­plice style this show is hil­ari­ous with clev­er (and omg­ter­rible) lines plus scen­ari­os, that lov­ingly mashes up all the famil­i­ar bits of stor­ies we know then plays them back to us with heart. Paul Wag­gott plays every­body. He is ener­get­ic, with a phys­ic­al per­form­ance that car­ries the story when the words or allu­sions become too much to pro­cess. There is clown­ing, run­ning, dan­cing, mime, and the occa­sion­al still moment. Backed by dir­ect­ors Han­nah Banks and Uth­er Dean, out­stand­ing sound design by Oliv­er Devlin, and a superb light­ing design this is a show to cheer you up after a bad week.

If you have any love for par­od­ied fantasy fic­tion then you must see this play. It’s everything you want in a trib­ute show and more.*

 

*There is one bit I can’t write about because it’s a massive SPOILER how­ever it’s a beau­ti­ful little east­er egg that is still mak­ing me laugh every time I remem­ber it.