Review: Journey to the Centre of the Earth at Cast, Doncaster

“…two very brilliant and funny people…thoroughly enjoyable….”

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, Cast, Doncaster

By Grace Sansom

Did I make the right decision? Going to review a budget parody of a film I’ve never seen? Yes, I did! I got the gist, got the jokes and got to see two very brilliant and funny people play around with drunk audience participation, dinosaurs and disastrous attempts at many, many accents. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Tom Fox and Becky Owen-Fisher play… well… everyone in this retelling of the 1959 (or 2008) bizarre culturally-and-comedically-renowned Journey to the Centre of the Earth. They’ve swapped box office budget for cardboard props, a loop pedal and laptop, canvas sheeting and transparent orange body stockings.

Let’s test the production’s loyalty to the film’s rather insane plot and see if I’ve got it right… A scientist/professor/explorer-type gentleman and his dim Bristolian-accented nephew go to a volcano in Iceland and jump inside it, followed by an evil Count and his friend. They fly through boulders, fight past sharks and dinosaurs and get catapulted out of a different volcano – one in Italy this time. And then, of course, they realise they don’t need the glory of discovering the centre of the earth. All they need is love. Got it!

The strongest part of this production is the songs. Fox is a very talented singer and musician. These comedy ballads and bops keep the piece together as we transition through intense multi-roling, costume changes and fantastical setting swaps. Second to the musical magic is the relationship between the two actors. They bounce off each other wonderfully, pre-empting each other’s reactions and improv styles. As an audience member, you can sit back and relax when you see this kind of duo in comedy. Your evening entertainment is in very safe, albeit wacky, hands.

The use of props is pretty golden too. A few standout favourites include the laugh-out-loud slapstick use of cardboard, the foam finger sidekick Hans (get it?) and the young nephew’s lover being a floaty muslin dress on a hanger, wielded by Owen-Fisher, that Fox sticks his head through when playing both counterparts. It’s very funny stuff.

I wouldn’t be doing my job as a reviewer if I wasn’t honest about the parts of this ‘journey’ that don’t quite take off. There was a big loop pedal mix-up at one point, but both actors handled this with earnest wit and relied on the audience rapport they’d built to make it into a ‘bit’.

However, I think this reliance on the audience was a downfall of the night. The constant ‘do you like this?’, ‘he definitely enjoyed that bit’, ‘that went wrong’, ‘what accent am I doing?’ etc. bordered on overindulgent and really jarred. It made the comedy seem insecure and parts became repetitive.

Communication with the audience in a comedy piece can be downright hilarious. But when it is relentless, it can feel like actors are trying too hard to impress and their own jokes dwindle in hilarity. In this production, the actors are funny and the jokes are good. I wish they’d trusted that and let longer periods of their show exist without checking in on the audience or dragging bits out if they received a longer or louder laugh than expected, or rehashing jokes that didn’t land the first time.

Also, probably not best to keep repeating that you don’t want to be performing in Doncaster, to a paying audience of people living in Doncaster. I have every faith that Fox and Owen-Fisher can get on the West End, but maybe they shouldn’t keep repeating they wish they were there instead of here.

It is clear that these are two very, very talented actors who are well-trained and dedicated. They have funny in their bones and wit in their brains. There were moments of this production that could stay in the chambers of a faraway volcano…but the majority could catapult out of Cast and be celebrated as parody comedy at its hilarious best: innuendo, musical numbers, clowning and improv. I really look forward to seeing something else by them soon. Unlike the original films of this title (I don’t think I’ll be looking for those), Lamphouse Theatre are a company to watch out for.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth at Cast, Doncaster on Thursday 23 October.

Grace Sansom is a freelance theatre critic and arts and cultural journalist based in Doncaster, covering productions in Doncaster, Sheffield, Leeds and York. She has been reviewing theatre for 7 years, published locally and nationally, for digital and in print publications. In 2023, Grace won a place on the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Society’s Emerging Critic Scheme, reviewing and commentating for The Herald. Grace has worked in arts marketing and communications for 5 years, now working in Digital Content for the Booker Prizes. Grace also runs the Doncaster Creatives’ Book Club, writing and publishing book content on their popular Substack. You can find Grace on Instagram.