Review: Hold onto Your Butts at Pleasance Forth

Review by Kate Gaul

In “Hold on to Your Butts”, 3 comedians recreate all the scenes in “Jurassic Park”. It’s all done on a fringe budget. That’s the aesthetic. Paper party hats, an umbrella and some swimming goggles are used to recreate dinosaurs. Sometimes, a tie around a wrist is a necessary stand-in for a Jurassic Park character. This is a return season

My first mistake in seeing this show is that I know nothing about “Jurassic Park”.  The challenge with “Hold on to Your Butts”, is that if you don’t know the film you could be completely lost – I was.  I make this as a criticism because surely, they could tell a story that even to the uninitiated makes some kind of narrative sense. But no, two bordering-on-middle-aged white guys get all hot and bothered paying some kind of homage to a childhood favourite.

The third (female) member of the troupe provides sound effects, including helicopter sounds, keyboard clattering, and dinosaur roars (in the distance). I was attracted to the show as it promised foley.  Foley for me is the creation of sounds to match the action.  As the foley artist in theatre often occupies the same space as the performers it is the juxtaposition of the objects that make the sounds that can be ingenious and deeply funny. In “Hold on to Your Butts” most of the effects were done by vocal sounds into a microphone that were literal in terms of the action.  No real surprises – everything sounded like if would if you were on stage – and certainly no visual humour from the foley desk.

 “Hold on to Your Butts” has a selection bias in its favour. If you don’t know Jurassic Park, then why would you go to this Fringe show? Don’t do it. Plenty of people do know the film and are flocking to this show – they don’t need us! Even if you can wade your way through the mansplaining swamps of the opaque story line you may cringe ever so at the poorly masked dislike for camp (smells like homophobia).  And of course this is a man only adventure!

It is not a witty deconstruction or critique of the period in which the film was made. There’s no edge or wit.  It like watching a never-ending theatre sports tournament in from the early 1990s. Yep, this one wasn’t for me.

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