I leaned over to my theatre-going com­pan­ion just before the start of this show and poin­ted at one of the audi­ence-made space­ships lying on the floor of BATS’ Ran­dom Stage. “That space­ship looks a lot like a dildo,” I remarked, pres­ci­ently as always, and he agreed.

The audi­ence, in an ode to pre­dict­ab­il­ity, chose it.

And thus, we all embarked on a fant­ast­ic space jour­ney with the crew of the aptly-named SS Wang, who were determ­ined to save the uni­verse from the hor­rors of the pat­ri­archy (and unwatered plants). Which, in the space of about 50 minutes, they abso­lutely man­aged to do.

Space Patrol 5 is the brainchild of Christ­ch­urch’s Court Jesters, and was spear­headed in Wel­ling­ton this year by former cast mem­bers Matt Pow­ell and Bren­don Ben­netts. It’s an entirely impro­vised show, and a spoof of well-known sci-fi shows and works.

From chal­len­ging the great and ter­ri­fy­ing might of the Kar­dashi­an Empire to every­day examples of miso­gyny closer to home, the crew of the SS Wang (which was renamed the SS Pussy after defeat­ing said empire), brought us an excit­ing and hil­ari­ous show with some lovely moments of sin­cer­ity.

I’d espe­cially like to note the act­or play­ing the bot­an­ist, Straw­berry Fields, who took an utterly bizarre premise and man­aged to cre­ate enough sci­enceish tech­nobabble – alo­everastoponous (sp???) plants, indeed – to fool even the greatest of sci-fi con­nois­seurs. I did­n’t quite under­stand the intric­a­cies of the Kar­dashi­an Empire’s evil plans – some­thing involving the alo­everastoponous plants – but in the end, it hardly even mattered.

Space Patrol 5 was com­pel­ling sci-fi and very, very fun.

 

If you’re in Wel­ling­ton, check out the New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al! It’s on from now until Sat­urday. Tick­ets from their web­site.