Hair-raising hilarity from Eastern Angles

2019 marks the 30th year of Christmas shows from the Ipswich based company, and they’re celebrating with a real corker. The Fenland Screamers and Other Boggy Tales sees four strangers invited to a party in an impressive art deco house situated in the middle of the fictional Darkling Fen. The host is absent and no-one can remember where they might have met him.

A zombie story seems an unusual choice for a Christmas production, but write​rs Pat Whymark and Julian Harries have created a clever portmanteau piece, using three increasingly absurd stories, told by the partygoers, to ultimately reveal what links all the characters together. Fenland Screamers is an energetic and farcical tale, with plenty of one liners, winks to the audience and toe tapping songs.

The cast work brilliantly together to transport us from dingy fenland to snowy mountainside, complete with rope bridge and marvellous goat cameos. We’re whisked from a toilet cubicle to a perilous river, with added poison arrows; and then on to a Germanic hilltop mansion via a cafe in Newcastle. The range of outrageous accents is really quite breathtaking!

Joe Leat, an Eastern Angles veteran, plays a marvellously likeable Baronet in voluminous trousers and Geri Allen’s straight talking Purdita with perfect cut glass accent is a real gem. James McNaughton brings something Monty Python-esque to his portrayal of pilot Fliipersby, and Anthony Pinnick’s stuttering butler really sets the tone for the evening. Eloise Kay’s maniacal Radoxia is a pure treat. Expect silly jokes, magnificent wigs, the odd zombie, and lots of quick changes. The Fenland Screamers and Other Boggy Tales is not to be missed!

At The Key Theatre Studio until Saturday, to book please contact: https://vivacity.org/whatson/theatre-and-arts/the-fenland-screamers-other-boggy-tales/ or tel:01733 207239