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Review: May Taylor
BLOODY painful is possibly the best way to summarise Blak
yak's Red Dwarf II.
The regular Dwarf crew are still in space and want to meet some
space chicks, but no luck, there's problems with the ship and
there's a 'white hole' throwing back time (and bad jokes too!).
And that's really as far as you get before interval, and that's
more than enough of cringe-worthy performances and tragic jokes
for anyone to bear.
The script, adapted by Nick Donald revolved around jokes, bad
ones, thrown in to drive what little action there is, as nothing
much happens in this slow moving adaptation.
There is no great flux in action or crisis points, just a general
wash of one thing after another, leaving the black velvet curtains
on the wall of the venue more interesting than the action.
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The performances are, unfortunately, worse.
Chris Thomas plays Cat, the humanoid puss, who has evolved from
Lister's original on board pet, but, unfortunately, he didn't
quite grasp the accent he attempted, resulting in a tragically
bad American accent.
Nick Donald blandly revives his role as Lister, the last actual
human on-board, but it would seem he forgot to take his Berocca
that morning and gave a flat, one-dimensional performance.
Jarrod Buttery plays Holly, the ship's computer. Buttery appeared
to believe the jokes were funny, and let them stand on their own
without much else in the way of character to drive them or sustain
any interest.
The basic set sufficed, but with a barrage of excessive scene
and prop changes in the traditional way (prop hands and black
out) this drew out the agony of many scenes with not much to offer.
Perhaps if the show was presented to primary school children,
they may have gotten away with it (although pics of Candy the
'penthouse' centrefold may have to go).
Die-hard Red Dwarf fans may be either tolerant or just down right
offended. To summarise in the words of Kryten: "We are driving
up diarrhoea drive without a saddle."
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