The Trap - Bad Musical

I hate Edinburgh Fringe.

Mainly because I haven't been and all the fun people abandon me for a month leaving my blog empty and my life just a shell.

However there was the smaller and less known Camden Fringe just a short bus ride away and I decided to see "Bad Musical" by The Trap.

The Trap consist of Jeremy Limb, Paul Litchfield and Dan Mersh and release their own free "Sodcast" every week or two on iTunes. t's an hour long barrage of non-sequiturs, amusing voices and odd logic and if you're a fan of Collings & Herrin or Precious Little then it's well worth a listen. I mainly know The Trap as being 3/4 of Los Quattros Cvnts who perform at The Phoenix on the first Wednesday of the month (shows start again in October after a short break)

Bad Musical was at The Etcetera theatre, which is a small rather warm room above The Oxford Arms in Camden. I got there about 45 minutes before show time and waited for @Neal55 to arrive. It was hot and noisy in the main bar so I decided to wait outside. I said a brief hi to Paul but took a seat in the corner as I don't really like to disturb performers before their show (afterwards is a different matter!)

It didn't look good. I seemed to be surrounded by a group of proper lads in pink T-shirts bearing the words "Rugby Addict", being rather raucous and singing songs about pissing in the sink. At first I thought it could be an impromptu satirical Camden Fringe performance, but I soon realised they were just annoying twats.

We took our seats and the show began. An official voice informed us that the show was written as a 3 hour piece but had to be truncated. Every so often as the show progressed we were informed that the next long chunk of the musical had been removed, which negated the need for any important plot and allowed the characters to get out of whatever hole they had dug themselves into. We were also told that Lloyd Webber had threatened legal action and the song had to be changed.

Starting with "Life Is A Musical", The Trap tried to reference as many musical as possible with increasingly contrived lyrics. Yes, this was living up to its name (in a good way!)

"When you come back from Vietnam and you miss Saigon - that's a musical"
"When you steal clothes from Derek Acorah's line - that's a musical"
"You're a Chicken Kiev eater - that's a musical"

Prizes are available if you can guess the musicals above..

The plot rotates round Dan Mersh's character (Johnny Everyman) growing up in a small town and eventually leaving for London, becoming a banker, causing the melt down of the economic system, becoming homeless, and ending up in space. All the other characters are played by Paul and Jeremy and the array of voices they use is pretty impressive (though regular listeners to the Sodcasts will be used to this).

I just wish I had more reference points for these songs. A great Rocky Horror show style song and the aforementioned Lloyd Webber song with every 8th note painfully changed were highlights for me, as well as the many (well-rehearsed) "technical problems".

As usual for a show I'm enjoying, it finished far too quickly and we retreated downstairs to the beer garden. Luckily the pink rugby cunts had gone. Neal and I spent some time chatting with Paul (mainly about Doctor Who) and as often is the case with Paul, he utterly bamboozled and confused me with his many shifts in characters and voices. And this is after the show! Sometimes an after show chat with The Trap can be as entertaining as the show itself. They are a lovely collection of nelly sweariness.

I do hope the team play some more dates soon. Now the other Cvnt (Michael Legge) has also become a muscial star at Edinburgh with "Gutted" I imagine the next LQC could be quite a camp affair!