Cybaria

Written By: Liam Walters

On Thursday 10^th of November, BUSOM (Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals) brought us their second production of the academic year, in the form of Sci-Fi laugh-and-sing-fest ‘Voyage to the Prohibited Planet’, a BUSOM adaptation of the 80’s film ‘Return to the Forbidden Planet’, which in turn was actually an adaptation of the 50’s film ‘Forbidden Planet’, and once more was an adaptation to Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. I mean, it’s had more adaptations than the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio play.

The show is about a spaceship crew, led by Captain Tempest, played by James Howe, who delivers a uniquely funny performance with the character, handing out laughs from the start. He and his crew end up crash landing on the planet D’illyria, where they meet Doctor Prospero, his daughter and his robot. Doctor Prospero has been working on ‘The X-Factor’ formulation, which ultimately ends up creating a 12 foot monster that tries to kill people. Still preferable to what comes from our current televisual ‘X-Factor’.

This being a BUSOM production, you could be sure there would be singing, and the BUSOM team did not disappoint, singing a range of funky old school music, from ‘Great Balls of Fire’ to ‘The Monster Mash’, you had to restrain yourself from not singing along with the tunes.

The opening to the production was… Interesting to say the least, with an audience participation where the BUSOM team managed to have them place their hands on their heads, then nod their heads up and down whilst blowing a raspberry. That said, it was a fantastic way to lighten the mood straight from the offset, giving a few chuckles before most of the dialog had even begun.

We see Captain Tempest arguing with his Science Officer, as they both begin to sing ‘It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s world’, whilst arguing the importance of men and women on earth. I do wonder if it would help to point out they are in space.

Possibly one of the most noticeable jokes throughout the show was the captain’s badge. Whilst the crew all sported a badge in the shape of a rocket, the captain also sported such a badge, although his rocket was a little more phallic in design. Speaking of costume humour though, both Dan Ratcliffe and especially Stuart Sellens both did fantastic jobs in their role as Red Shirts, taking a lesson from Star Trek, and being two of the very few characters that died, with Stuart going a step further, with actually wearing a star trek designed red shirt. (Now here’s hoping he doesn’t wear the costume on his day off).

Another reference for the geeks in the audience were towards the end of the production, as the red shirts came back to sing the finale songs, both sported silver ‘H’ symbols on their foreheads, an obvious reference to the Sci-Fi series ‘Red Dwarf’, and the H’s of the holograms of dead crew members. One more, well, two, came from Doctor Who, firstly with the ship’s chef using a sonic screwdriver to scan a robot, and a second where the crew had to ‘reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’, which was said twice throughout the production. Although it was said as many times as The Third Doctor, I fear they may not be remembered for it as much as he was.

The minimal set worked fantastically, being comprised of chairs, a couple music stands, and a black curtain, with the rest of the production relying on lighting, music but most importantly, and what made the production just that much better, the work and effort of the cast and crew. Although some of the cast did need to keep a copy of the script in black folders with them, personally I do not think that the performance was affected by this, and was great all the same.

Something which gave me a somewhat mixed opinion on the piece was the queue’s to go into some of the songs, which basically came down to trying to fit some or all of the song title into a line of dialogue. Now, being both a presenter and listener of RamAir, I am used to hearing a lot of very bad and dodgy links into songs (admittedly, more than half are probably made by myself), which is the main reason why I can’t really hate this technique so much, being one I use myself quite often.

As we broke for the interval, the crew was in freeze frame, and for a few short moments, I wondered if they would stay in their positions throughout the interval. I was happy to find that they in fact did take a well deserved break as well, returning to their positions after the interval, jumping straight back in to the action.

Finally, I need to mention the work of the cast and crew. I do now have the time or word count to properly go through all the amazing performances that were given by the cast and the fantastic job done by the crew, so I would like to congratulate them all on a show well done, and I eagerly await their next production, due out in December, being ‘Around The World In 80 Minutes’.

For more information on BUSOM, please visit: http://busom.org

List of Cast & Crew:

Captain Tempest – James Howe

Gloria – Anna Garlick

Miranda – Rachel Mitchell

Prospero – Dave Jennings

Ariel 5000 – Naomi Fowler

Cookie – Joel Blakemore

Boson – Andrzej Frelek

Steward – Emily Bennett

Narrator – Sara Pietrzik

Crewman – Joseph Page

Aliens – Poppy Brooks, Lyndsey Niven, Emelie Ollila

Redshirts – Daniel Ratcliffe, Stuart Sellens

Chorus – Jon Carter, David Collinson, Nartani Nithianandasivam

Directors – Christine Brighouse-Johnson, Bill Harding, Zoe Howe

Piano Man – Bill Harding

Crew – Mike Bedford, Nicki Bedford, Kate Concannon