Edinburgh 2012 trailer

#Screwtheworld

Four Screws Loose: Fringe 2012
Live Review
Assembly George Square

As their ‘bonkers; moniker suggests, Four Screws Loose are a bunch of wired, gurning, day-glo clowns who will go deaf before they turn 30 if they play their music that loudly.

Apologies if that sounds like the moaning of a curmudgeonly old biddy but that’s exactly how I felt watching them prat about in this show. Where was my pint of cider ‘n’ black? I seemed to have stumbled into a student union, regrettably sober.

A teenage daydream of a Super Mario skit is followed by an ‘abridged audio version of Titanic’ – an ear-piercing karaoke mash-up supplemented by enthusiastic lip-synching and a lot of simulated sex. Then there’s another film pastiche – this time The Artist, stripped of all its original charm – and then the ‘surreal’ sketch, which is such a brazen copy of  The League of Gentlemen’s Tubbs and Edward I’d be surprised if lawyers aren’t preparing strongly worded letters.

The lowest point sees them playing a pair of grotesque old ladies with loose dentures and pendulous breasts (Eww! Old people!) who are giving a sex education class – one poor man really comes a cropper in the audience interaction lottery. The highest point is a maximum-energy, minimum-content spoof of the Lady Marmalade/Moulin Rouge video that seems to have been written, like most of their material, to make the most of their Hollywood waxes and neon green thongs. Late Night Gimp Fight suddenly look quite sophisticated.

No one could dispute the four are good performers –  their exhausting boy band spoof proves that this is one group who really can sing, not to mention dance – and one of their saving graces is their well-rehearsed slickness. But it’s style without substance. No doubt that will prove enough for some and it’s easy to imagine the show going down a storm with a Saturday night crowd. But it’s certainly not one for this (not-all-that-old) dear.