Red Bus Londinium Life

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Spymonkey’s The Frogs, now running at the Kiln Theatre is a return after some years for the Spymonkey troupe.  If you love physical theatre and are a Spymonkey fan who wants to see the next step on their journey, you will be in for a treat. The movement, timing and costumes are top class and had much of the audience in fits of laughter.

This is not the play for you if you want to see Aristophane‘s Greek comedy. The main bones of that plot are buried in the bawdy physical comedy but this is mostly a play about Spymonkey itself. Audience members near me were dissatisfied with this. 

Spymonkey have been around for years but have, since their last show, lost two members (one to Las Vegas, one who has very sadly passed away). There are a lot of references to this in the show and it was easy to feel that they expected the audience to be “in the know” about this. 

For example, we clapped two images at the end. I presume they were the past members (audience around me gave huge cheers for them) but have no way of knowing. It is perhaps important to remember that any audience will have both new viewers and old fans.

Reflection on losing their two members also led to an uneven tone. One moment we are laughing at wobbling balls, the next we are trying to bring a dead friend back from the afterlife. Some things are, perhaps, just not funny.

Have others seen The Frogs? What were your thoughts?