Reviewer: Christine Stanton
Writer & Director: Rosalie Roger-Lacan & Amber Charlie Conroy
“Intentionally Over-Exaggerated“
2.5 / 5
University has finished and friends Sam, Rosa and Ruby are off to Wales for a spontaneous camping trip. What they don’t account for, is that Ruby is going to bring her new girlfriend Lily, Rosa is going to bring the wrong type of tent, and Sam is going to pick a camping option that is so budget that even sleeping in the Portaloo is looking like a better option.
When buying the tent on Facebook Marketplace – Rosa (Alice Bebber) was convinced it was a tent, four girls, not a tent for girls, but on revealing the children’s playpen style accommodation, her mistake was clear. They decide to make the best of the situation, and rather than going home, huddle inside in the pouring rain in the hopes that surely at some point the rain would stop and their ‘fun and games’ trip can finally begin. But when Sam (Ciara Hughes) catches Ruby (Bethan Owen) and Lily (Evie Cooper) hooking up, it’s the last straw.
Full disclosure – I wanted to like this a lot more than I did and I personally wasn’t a fan of the comedy in the show. However, I definitely seemed to be in the minority because it was extremely well received by most others watching. There were lots of laughs from the audience throughout, so while it wasn’t my cup of tea, it’s still a show that can clearly be enjoyed by many! For me, it was a bit too cringey – and although a lot of the humour was there to be intentionally over-exaggerated and purposefully awkward, most of the storyline didn’t seem to materialise into much past the baseline. A lot of the intended humour instead comes from a combination of silly pronunciations of things, repetition of various phrases back and forth, harmonising words into a melody and shouting loud exclamations in the middle of scenes in the style of an Army general. It is a strange comedic mix of Russell Brand meets the Inbetweeners if they were all Simon, female and had gone to Eton with dreams of becoming a Tory MP. The plot is quite thin and feels more like a sketch revision of an overlong inside joke between friends rather than a fully fleshed out, characterised script.
That being said – the cast of four, do a great job of delivering the writing as it’s intended, and go above and beyond to energetically exaggerate each of their mannerisms and interactions as much as possible. The standalone premise itself, is brilliantly funny and relatable through many aspects – with a lot of different avenues that the storyline could take in the future, be it fleshing out the trip itself, or combining other comedic styles into the writing to further diversify it.
Runs Until 13 April 2024
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