Spy Movie: The Play!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: to watch the adventures of secret agent Jane Blonde, as she battles to save the world, and to put on a budget-stretched stage version of a spy movie.

With a tight cast of just four, Spy Movie: The Play! has the unlikely premise that in a hunt for funding for a film, a producer (played by Matthew Howell) cajoles and tricks his writer (Katy Daghorn), lead actress (Jo Hartland), and stuntman (Jamie Watterson) into putting on a low-budget stage version of Blonde’s tale.

Shorn of special effects, location filming, and most of the cast, the four pitch in to play dozens of characters and tell the equally-convoluted ‘on-screen’ story through the medium of Barbie dolls, party poppers for explosions, and a seemingly unlimited number of hats.

The show is filled to brim with puns and poor jokes as it takes the James Bond franchise out for a rubbing (with occasional nods to other films of a similar ilk), with Howell and co-writer Jack Michael Stacey’s script suggesting a great deal of affection for 007.

There are some genuinely funny moments, including the roaring MGM lion recreated through a shaggy wig and a parodied Bond opening sequence, the transparently dodgy plotting, and some excruciating one liners.

The trouble is that much of this has been done before, and there is not enough that feels fresh to justify the two-hour run time. Peter Sellers had a go in the first film version of Casino Royale nearly 60 years ago, the Moore-era Bond’s became almost parodies of themselves, and Mike Myers’ Austin Powers scraped what was left of the barrel in three features.

The cast do a cracking job flitting between characters, keeping on top of props, accents, and the flexible (and slightly fragile) set, but they and the audience would be better served by a shorter script that really ramped up the silliness – perhaps something closer to the Edinburgh Fringe show that this latest tour grew out of.