In the age of disinformation, Red Fox Theatre has put together a musical comedy to tell the story of the man who started it all: Milton William ‘Bill’ Cooper.
I must admit, I wasn’t actually familiar with Cooper myself before watching Bill, so I was looking forward to learning something new — and about such an incredibly timely subject.
Bill isn’t a straightforward autobiographical show. Describing themselves as practitioners of ‘Chaos Theatre’, Red Fox Theatre bring us a suitably bonkers retelling of one of America’s most notorious conspiracy theorists.
There’s music, puppetry, physical comedy, parodies and more — it’s a ‘kitchen sink’ style approach to storytelling that I am pretty much always a fan of. Sometimes the chaos can make it tricky to follow the thread of the story, with tangential skits galore that sometimes overstay their welcome. Still, I came away feeling thoroughly entertained and with some new nuggets of knowledge that weren’t previously in my possession.
Four energetic and rambunctious performers lead us through this unorthodox retelling, steered by Jonty Weston playing Cooper, among other roles. He does a fantastic job of portraying the kind of off putting character who manages to remain utterly magnetic to a certain disenfranchised section of society (…sound like anyone?).
Rachel Barnes, Callum McGuire and Christopher Weeks complete the pack, each bringing a number of characters to life, from the real to the fiction. Alongside their heightened acting performances, all four performers also play musical instruments, create sound effects, and sing, creating a really immersive theatrical experience.
The original songs in the show, composed by Ruby Connolly with lyrics by Megan Jenkins, range from country to funk, and do a great job at anchoring some of the more unwieldy scenes. I found myself fighting the urge to sing along to a few of them by the end.
There are a lot of laughs in the show, but be warned that the humor tends to veer on the immature side. Thankfully for me, that’s right up my street, and I found myself laughing out loud frequently, but I appreciate not every theatregoer is that way inclined.
Jonjo McGuire’s set design is superb, grounding the surreal action in its own quirky reality, adding a deeper dimension to the performance. An especially inspired touch is the addition of three signs above the stage, which read ‘TRUE’, ‘UNSUBSTANTIATED’, and ‘QUOTE’, which light up in turn throughout the piece to remind us how much of this unbelievable story actually happened.
Bucketloads of creativity and cleverness have gone into Bill, and it made me excited to see what else Red Fox Theatre have up their sleeves — and want to do a deep dive of Cooper’s Wikipedia page.
Playing until 22nd December, https://www.omnibus-clapham.org/bill/
Reviewer: Olivia Cox
Reviewed: 5th December 2024
North West End UK Rating: