This award-winning theatre double act come to Nottingham with a comedy show that is part queer fever dream and part corporate seminar, and much more...
On a stiflingly humid evening, audiences packing into the main auditorium for the first week of William Ivory’s new play, cabaret duo Fag Packet’s fringe favourite could easily have been overlooked. Winningly, that wasn’t the case and an appreciative crowd filled out the Neville Studio. Mercifully, the Neville Studio was air-conditioned.
Fag Packet comprise Kheski Kobler and Holly Wilson-Guy who play, respectively, Susan and Sally, two big-haired businesswomen navigating the dodgier corners of yuppiedom in a day-glo evocation/send-up of the Nineties. Susan is driven by the aspirational credos of the firm they work for (and gradually come to realise they’re being exploited by), while Sally is driven by her semi-requited passion for Susan.
The play takes the form of a seminar with Susan and Sally vying to hit their targets by signing up the audience to what is soon revealed as a pyramid scheme. It’s a terrific concept that allows for some good-natured audience interaction. The recruits the twosome are looking for are Dynamic Young Knowledgeable Entrepreneurs - dykes. “You too can be dykes,” Susan declares, before alighting her gaze on some of the gentlemen in the audience and hurriedly pointing out that it’s probably for the best if they don’t use that word.
from the garden of Eden to the great plague of London
For a good half of its hour-long running time, Dyke Systems Ltd alternates its satirical barbs between the business world and LGBTQ stereotypes, many of its barrage of jokes landing at the expense of heteronormativity. And the humour certainly comes thick and fast, with flashbacks, daytime TV soap opera contrivances and even musical numbers adding to the fun. A standout set-piece is a canned history of the world that hyperlinks from the garden of Eden to the great plague of London to Charles Manson to yuppies, and manages to be utterly bonkers while still making perfect sense.
A semblance of narrative kicks in during the second half, involving corporate malfeasance, conspiracy and the pursuit of our beleaguered heroines by the FBI. The pace becomes frenetic and the humour a little more forced. Nonetheless, an appropriately OTT finale including a motorbike chase (some suspension of disbelief required) and a Thelma and Louise style last hurrah rounds the show out entertainingly.
Dyke Systems Ltd played at Nottingham Playhouse on Thursday 9 June 26
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