Reducing the big screen (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Reducing the big screen

12:27pm Thursday 17th November 2005

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THE Reduced Shakespeare Company were running out of institutions to rifle through for their successful break-neck comedy franchise. They've produced The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), The Complete History of America (abridged), and The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged).

But, as cast member Aaron Brown tells me, travelling between shows in Oxford and Chatham, the hunt for a follow-up ran into problems. He says: "We were going to do a reducing the Koran show but then thought we should wait a few years."

He's joking, the company like to take a swipe at institutions but prefer less contentious targets.

The new show is Completely Hollywood (abridged) and it comes to the Radlett Arts Centre on Friday and Saturday.

The show takes an irreverent look at the history of the cinema or, as Aaron puts it, "putting on all manner of blockbusters but taking out everything people don't want so you're left with just the sex and the violence".

Aaron says he's never counted the number of films alluded to in the show but there must be "upwards of 250", including such classics as "The Third Man, The Matrix, The Godfather and The Wizard of Oz".

In the show the cast attempts to create the perfect Hollywood blockbuster, with a little help from the audience, complete with, Aaron says, "all the movie cliches and even some bad Japanese dubbing".

Aaron adds: "In keeping with the Reduced Shakespeare style we do use the audience quite a bit but the fun of the second act is spotting all the movie references and they come thick and fast."

In fact, Aaron is having none of my criticism that the show panders to the attention defecits of the modern audience. He counters that the host of nods to great and not-so-great films mean even the biggest film buff will have to be on their toes to spot them all. He says: "We are forcing the audience to be aware of what is going on. As the show is so fast paced you have to concentrate more just to keep up."

The show was premiered at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival and is now touring the country.

Aaron says the tour allows some fine-tuning of the show as they go along. He says: "We had an amazing reaction in Edinburgh but the tour gives us the opportunity to make it even better."

The franchise has been hugely successful. An almost unprecedented ten-year residency at The Criterion Theatre in London's West End has only just ended.

The new show on the silver screen hopes to continue that golden touch.

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