Review by Steve Bennett

Oh no, I hear you cry. Not another musical comedy extravaganza about the life and wok of pioneering 18th century anatomist John Hunter, featuring a giant foam prop. Indeed it is.

You couldn’t accuse We Are Goose of being hack in their inspiration, and Hunter is certainly an intriguing subject. He was an oddball with a penchant for bizarre cross-species grafting, a creepy friendship with a freak-show giant, and unsavoury connections with London’s ‘body-snatchers’. And it all went a bit wrong for him when he tried a spot of self-innoculation.

Hit musicals have been built on just as unlikely topics, and Timothy Goose and his musical sidekick Rich Hughes seem to have ambitious in that direction, telling the tale with a light wit, jaunty songs, and set pieces that are more theatrical than their modest venue might herald.

Goose has the affable air of an passionate academic, a real ‘swivel-eyed loon’ full of zeal for his eccentric subject, and employing all the tricks he can muster to infuse his lecture with a sense of entertainment, so as to best spread the news about his pet topic. He’s certainly made the effort in terms of period costume, which is more than can be said for the T-shirted Hughes, which is a shame as it breaks what should be an all-encompassing Enlightenment aesthetic.

Their music is of the ubiquitous folk-rock style, but done, like the the rest of the hour, with enthusiastic verve. Some of the set pieces are a little stretched, but it seems entirely in the spirit of their subject to throw themselves wholeheartedly into an idea, however ill-advised in might be.

And even if the often delightful comedy wavers off track, as it sometimes does, Hunter is never less than a fascinating subject, surely well overdue a round of his own on QI. And for all his eccentricities, he did make genuine breakthroughs in medicine, too,

By the end, you’ll almost certainly be yearning to visit the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College Of Surgeons; and I think Goose would consider that ‘job done’.

Review date: 20 May 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton Caroline of Brunswick