Jack McGee
Izzie Newton-Cross’s Running Wet Through a Tunnel is nothing short of manic. A show about sperm making their way to the egg; it’s bananas, an hour of complete where-is-this-going-next madness. It bounces around genre, playing with elements of musical theatre, cabaret, and drag. It barrels forward, relentless, without waiting for the audience, or much in the way of polish, to catch up.
The biggest thing holding Running Wet Through a Tunnel back is its performances. While filled with a cast of strong young actors, many of the choices they make get in the way of me fully enjoying the madcap nonsense of the play. Our central four performers, led by stand-out Sarah Penny, are all doing massive comic voices. While sometimes funny, they’re wildly inconsistent, dropping in and out of accent on a moment’s notice. Often the vocal choices prevent me from actually hearing the dialogue spoken, and cause me to miss out on a joke. They often get so loud as to be painful - there’s a lot of screaming in this show. I don’t believe that we would lose any of the show’s energy if we were to dial these vocal choices down, or at least hone them in a more precise way.
While the show has a million very funny ideas, it struggles to develop them. At the opening of the show, our four sperm enter and do a finding-their-feet style dance to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. This is a bold move when you’re directly competing with the greatest scene in cinema history, but more importantly, it’s undercooked. The dance feels thrown together, none of the performers feel comfortable in it, and yet we stay on it for far longer than we need to.
Similarly, the show’s set is amazing yet seemingly unfinished. Heather Wright has built a massive vagina for the sperm to enter through, and it looms over the stage, effectively setting up the world of the show. Obviously, this is Fringe, and so the team would be unable to do anything with the floor, but it really feels like they’re not able to take full advantage of the space. Even two or three other set-pieces around the room would go a long way. There’s one other section in the show where we get a table with a Cervix painted on it, which is fantastic, and feels like a promise the show doesn’t follow through on.
There’s a distinct feeling that everyone involved is having the time of their lives, and this is infectious. It often informs performances for the better, and there are sections where I feel like I’m in on the joke. Logan Pocock essentially gives a drag performance as a used condom midway through the show, and is hysterical to watch. Yet even his section, a true highlight, feels like it goes on too long. The show seems to be missing the voice in the rehearsal room that says this is hilarious to us, but it may not translate to the audience, let’s tighten it up.
This isn’t me saying the show needs to be more “mature”. Spoilers ahead, there’s a shocking reveal during the middle of the show where one of the sperm turns out to be… Hitler reincarnated, or, rather, trying to be reincarnated. On paper, I think this is an awful idea. If I was in that rehearsal room, I would’ve said, no, what? But, I have to admit, it’s funny. It’s so shocking and out of left field that it’s hilarious. There’s no need for “mature”. My only issue with the bit, is that they don’t fully commit? Hitler’s song is seemingly unfinished. It’s a set of one liners centred around a core refrain of him making a comeback (cum-back, gettit?) that feels slapdash. He repeatedly talks about being German as well, when he was Austrian, which look, if you’re going to misattribute any of the personal specifics of anyone it may as well be Hitler, but it’s representative of the joke not being fully run with. He feels like non-specific-villain more than he does Hitler, which is a missed opportunity, and he’s dispatched completely unceremoniously.
Finally, there’s been mention that the show intends to be somewhat educational. I feel like there’s a lot of room for growth in this aspect as well. I assumed going in I’d be learning a lot about the specifics of a sperm’s journey to egg. This expectation is partially met. There’s a section where they visit the Cervix (Sir Vicks, played by Ashley Hartnett) and the sperm wind up covered in mucus. After this however, our stops-along-the-way become non reproductively specific. There’s a yeast infection (A french baker, played by Sugar Rea-Bruce), and the aforementioned used condom, along with the “spermuda triangle”. Why not emphasise uterine contractions? Find some comedic material in the Fallopian tubes? Let the yeast and the condom feel like out there exceptions to the educational rule.
Newton-Cross and her team have clearly found themselves a seriously great idea here. The premise is filled with possibility, and the completely unhinged creative attitude they’ve brought to the project means that truly anything is possible. I really hope they’re given the opportunity to take the extra time with this show that it needs to deliver on all of its ideas, and ensure that we, the audience, are able to come along for the ride.
While the show has a million very funny ideas, it struggles to develop them. At the opening of the show, our four sperm enter and do a finding-their-feet style dance to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. This is a bold move when you’re directly competing with the greatest scene in cinema history, but more importantly, it’s undercooked. The dance feels thrown together, none of the performers feel comfortable in it, and yet we stay on it for far longer than we need to.
Similarly, the show’s set is amazing yet seemingly unfinished. Heather Wright has built a massive vagina for the sperm to enter through, and it looms over the stage, effectively setting up the world of the show. Obviously, this is Fringe, and so the team would be unable to do anything with the floor, but it really feels like they’re not able to take full advantage of the space. Even two or three other set-pieces around the room would go a long way. There’s one other section in the show where we get a table with a Cervix painted on it, which is fantastic, and feels like a promise the show doesn’t follow through on.
There’s a distinct feeling that everyone involved is having the time of their lives, and this is infectious. It often informs performances for the better, and there are sections where I feel like I’m in on the joke. Logan Pocock essentially gives a drag performance as a used condom midway through the show, and is hysterical to watch. Yet even his section, a true highlight, feels like it goes on too long. The show seems to be missing the voice in the rehearsal room that says this is hilarious to us, but it may not translate to the audience, let’s tighten it up.
This isn’t me saying the show needs to be more “mature”. Spoilers ahead, there’s a shocking reveal during the middle of the show where one of the sperm turns out to be… Hitler reincarnated, or, rather, trying to be reincarnated. On paper, I think this is an awful idea. If I was in that rehearsal room, I would’ve said, no, what? But, I have to admit, it’s funny. It’s so shocking and out of left field that it’s hilarious. There’s no need for “mature”. My only issue with the bit, is that they don’t fully commit? Hitler’s song is seemingly unfinished. It’s a set of one liners centred around a core refrain of him making a comeback (cum-back, gettit?) that feels slapdash. He repeatedly talks about being German as well, when he was Austrian, which look, if you’re going to misattribute any of the personal specifics of anyone it may as well be Hitler, but it’s representative of the joke not being fully run with. He feels like non-specific-villain more than he does Hitler, which is a missed opportunity, and he’s dispatched completely unceremoniously.
Finally, there’s been mention that the show intends to be somewhat educational. I feel like there’s a lot of room for growth in this aspect as well. I assumed going in I’d be learning a lot about the specifics of a sperm’s journey to egg. This expectation is partially met. There’s a section where they visit the Cervix (Sir Vicks, played by Ashley Hartnett) and the sperm wind up covered in mucus. After this however, our stops-along-the-way become non reproductively specific. There’s a yeast infection (A french baker, played by Sugar Rea-Bruce), and the aforementioned used condom, along with the “spermuda triangle”. Why not emphasise uterine contractions? Find some comedic material in the Fallopian tubes? Let the yeast and the condom feel like out there exceptions to the educational rule.
Newton-Cross and her team have clearly found themselves a seriously great idea here. The premise is filled with possibility, and the completely unhinged creative attitude they’ve brought to the project means that truly anything is possible. I really hope they’re given the opportunity to take the extra time with this show that it needs to deliver on all of its ideas, and ensure that we, the audience, are able to come along for the ride.