Bears in Space

5/5

Bears in Space | Soho Theatre

Hilarious as hell!!
Now now, it's not really a play with a traditional story or sets so a high rating may not be warranted. But they wanted to make us laugh and they did.
It's a 4 member team called Collapsing Horse that told us an absolutely random story of two bears in space using all kinds of random home made props and puppets in a cosy setting in Jerrwood Upstairs. The story was so random that you laugh, and then you laugh some more.

A story keeper tells us the story of two bears traveling through space along with the frozen body of their dead captain. They have no idea what their mission is, and when they run out of energy they must go to the nearby industrial city country planet system of Metrotopia. Metrotopia is known for its evil dictator, crazy man with daddy issues who imprisons anyone and everyone. And of course at the end the bears save themselves and save the day, helped moderately by the spirit of the captain.

We booked it because it was transferred from Edinburgh fringe with great reviews and Jack Gleeson who played Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones was in it. He was really good as a dimwit son of the story keeper who is telling us the story but he was his best self as the evil emperor of Metrotopia (wink wink). He was definitely not the star performer because all four of them were equally good. The versatile Aaron Heffernan played a various number of characters including the lead bear, the emperor's personal evil plotter, cool dude bear in prison, etc. The other two, Cameron Macaulay and Eoghan Quinn played the story keeper and his other son, complementing the team. I'm glad we watched it and can't wait to see more material from Collapsing Horse.

Jack Gleeson said it right. It wasn't acting really. It was just some mates having fun.