Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ben Elton’s Popcorn meant to be a biting satire that combines the media glamour that surrounded Natural Born Killers and the geekiness and pretension of Quentin Tarintino to grand effect? I thought so, so why did Rattlesnake Theatre churn out eighty-odd minutes of dull, bland theatre under the guise of an award winning play?
Since we cannot fault the script, the reason that this production was so mind-numbingly boring is that some of the actors seemed intent in grinding it into the ground. Michelle Wormleighton was great as the vapid, besotted murderous sidekick and Mike Dickinson shone as the don’t-give-a-shit producer, but unfortunately our two main players couldn’t hack the roles handed to them.
Tim Harcourt simply overacted as the self-obsessed director, but Stuart Rouse managed to be both unconvincing and annoying as the supposedly psychotic serial killer Wayne. Were we frightened and intimidated? No, we were just bored and tired of his mile-a-minute delivery.
In the past Popcorn has garnered various glowing reviews all around the country. Rattlesnake look like they’re simply going to buck the trend as this ham-fisted effort isn’t worth the price of a free press ticket.
1/5
Richard Biggs
