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The Review - THEATRE by TOM FOOT
Published: 8 November 2007

Voice of Homer Simpson has a spring in his step

BICYCLE MEN
KING'S HEAD
Sara Newman

FOUR middle-aged men, members of the Chicago-based comedy troupe Second City, exhibit some well-synchronised and rehearsed goofing around against the back-drop of an unmistakably bleached-out French wall.
In this comic musical the voice behind
the crude, overweight,
clumsy cartoon character of Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta, is the exact opposite of the yellow lumbering fool we have all grown to know and laugh at.
Clambering on stage as an audience participator he spends the next hour either with a bicycle seat and a wheel wedged between his thighs or floating around the stage using mock martial arts forms to symbolise the passing of time.
He has real elegance despite the random antics.
When he serenades a plastic baby with a ballad of realism it is impossible to imagine Homer’s robust and grating tone.
As Steve he is stuck in a rural French village.
The repairs to his bicycle will take six months, and the restaurateur avoids serving him, making him wear a bright red tartan dining jacket.
He finds himself sharing a room with a Dutch traveller who can only sleep if he shrieks
Japanese folklore songs.
The human puppetry, mime, music, and vaudevillian theatrics of Castellaneta, Joe Liss, Mark Nutter and John Rubano combine Marx Brothers with Jacques Tati to deliver a very specific brand of toilet humour.
There are also some poignant points to be picked up on, including a song about fake breasts.
The cabaret show, which Steve enters to win a bike – the only way to leave the village – allows Rubano and Castellaneta to parody the homoerotic world of Broadway
musical.
Rubano is achingly good as a machismo deviant and Castellaneta makes a convincing effeminate “entertainer”.
With jokes that can run and run into unknown realms of absurdity, this operetta can be as light-hearted or meaningful as you like.

Until December 2
020 7226 1916

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