Review: St Andrews Revue’s Crass Menagerie

I was looking forward to seeing ‘The Crass Menagerie’ after thoroughly enjoying ‘Public Displays of Affectation’ last February. On arrival we were given programmes which had a photograph of each […]


I was looking forward to seeing ‘The Crass Menagerie’ after thoroughly enjoying ‘Public Displays of Affectation’ last February. On arrival we were given programmes which had a photograph of each of the actors (dressed as various animals) and then a paragraph describing each of them as an animal. It sounds weird, it was weird. And that was only the beginning.

The show opened with a sketch about a zoo. (The programmes sort of made sense in this light..) where Joe Fleming was angry that they had refused to use his overly-offensive sketch idea about bestiality. Who’d thought it??? It sounds bizarre but it was very entertaining. The actors dipped in and out of character which gave the audience an opportunity to get to know each of the actors, and set the tone for the rest of the show.

The show got in full swing with original sketches. One of my favourite was the one about the struggle of a long distance relationship between a student living on North St (played by Inez Gordon) and one living on Largo Road (Lorenzo De Boni). I must commend Inez for her bravery in this scene as she stripped off to reveal some sort of ribbon concoction did some ‘sexy’ dancing on stage, hilarious results ensued.

The show didn’t use a great deal of props, and the costumes were basic. However, this didn’t matter and ultimately ensured that the audience were not distracted from the comedy. The music played between each scene was consistently tongue in cheek, and kept the energy going even when the lights were off, which was a nice touch.

I was impressed with the actor’s ability to change characters almost instantaneously. Characters ranged from a group of die-hard atheists to a group of mime artists performing in an A Capella competition. (I told you it was weird) There was a broad range of humour, some jokes were obvious and rather cheesy (but they still worked) and others jokes were very dry. The variation kept the audience entertained and consistently ‘rofl’ing.

All the actors were truly excellent but in my opinion Mimi Von Schack was outstanding; all the characters she played were different from each other and she has excellent comic timing. Her outstanding performance as a freestyle rapper who is dumped in a cafe by her boyfriend and so channels her heartbreak into spontaneous gangster rap was beyond words.

The final scene was a parody of Destiny’s Child ‘Independent Woman’ adapted to the theme of the Kate Kennedy club allowing women. The audience died laughing as lyrics such as ‘all the honeys who followed Sunny, throw your hands up at me’ were powerfully belted out. There were occasions where I missed some of the jokes as I couldn’t hear them over the raucous laughter – but that can hardly be considered negative in a comedy sketch show.

Overall, ‘A Crass Menagerie’ was witty, intelligent and hilarious and an excellent way to spend an evening. I left the Byre in a great mood and have only just stopped laughing. I cannot wait for next year’s show!

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