COMEDY REVIEW: ‘Applespiel Make A Band And Take On The Recording Industry’

Comic: Applespiel
Show: Applespiel Make A Band And Take On The Recording Industry
Venue: Tower Theatre at the Malthouse, Melbourne, Australia

Sydney (via Wollongong) performance art collective Applespiel are an ambitious lot. Not content with simply earning rave reviews at the Edinborough Fringe Festival for their unique take on comedy and musical theatre, they’ve instead set their sights on launching an all-out assault on the music industry. Their weapon of choice for this endeavour is the appropriately titled Applespiel Make A Band And Take On The Recording Industry, a 70-minute live mockumentary that pulls no punches in a merciless and unforgiving takedown of the entire industry.

Arriving at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre as part of their Helium 2014 program following a successful run of shows in Sydney, the show is one part rock concert, one part live film shoot, one part thoughtful theatre piece and all parts hilarious. Performed by a stellar cast of young performers, Applespiel Make A Band And Take On The Recording Industry moves at a frantic pace as the audience is engrossed by an innovative presentation of interview segments, band meetings, live musical performances and ‘behind the music’ style backstage packages, all shot, edited and screened in real time before our very eyes. Sardonic and brilliant, the mockumentary they produce chronicles the rise and inevitable fall of the fictional indie rock group Applespiel, covering everything from the band’s inception, rise to stardom and the inevitable fall from grace that follows. The manner in which Applespiel chronicles the trials and tribulations of a band losing themselves in their fame and inflated sense of self-importance is bang on and would have made for a decent film or performance piece in its own right, but the incorporation of live band performances by Applespiel the band takes this whole venture to another level.

Applespiel the band play a blend of indie rock that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Australian airwaves and the quality of the band’s live performances add an element of believability to the story they are presenting. A particular standout musically is an art-rock duet by Rachel Woods and Nathan Harrison that could find favour with the folk-rock scene if Applespiel were legitimately a band. The hilarious skip-hop remix of their track by the also fictional MC Dylan also strikes a chord with the audience this night with Simon’s over-the-top performance bringing on fits of hysterical laughter in some corners of the compact space. At all times coming across as a polished and professional outfit, Applespiel continue the proud tradition of fake bands that are better than many of the real bands they are lampooning.

A triumph of staging, Applespiel Make A Band… utilises a dizzying array or production techniques to present a multi-media experience that moves seamlessly at all times. Particularly innovative is the way Applespiel break with theatre tradition by inviting the audience to choose whether to watch the ‘performance’ or ‘screened’ outcomes of each act as they take place. The impact of this is a performance piece that while obviously rehearsed, feels fresh and exciting, gifting the audience an experience akin to the ‘choose your own adventure’ novels of our childhood. On this particular Friday night, the adventure we chose proved to be a mixture of both the live and screened elements providing us with what appears to be the most fully realised adaptation of the work possible. Each and every cast member is incredibly accomplished as an actor, singer, musician and audio-visual artist and the result (somewhat ironically, given the subject matter) is an impeccable performance by an obviously close-knit theatre troupe.

Exciting, energetic and innovative, Applespiel Make A Band And Take On The Recording Industry is a stellar production that will have you dancing, singing and laughing your way into the night.

Review written by Brenton Harris — (Follow him on Twitter)

Applespiel Make A Band And Take On The Recording Industry is playing at the Tower Theatre at the Malthouse Theatre, Southbank now. For a full list of performance times and tickets visit The Malthouse.

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