Stephen And The Sexy Partridge

Osip Theatre

Old Red Lion, Islington and Trafalgar Studios

Adult Christmas comedy at The Old Red Lion
with Lorna Beckett, Lily Bevan, Pandora Colin, Ami Cree, Caroline Kilpatrick, Lucia McAnespie, Katie McGarry, Finnian O’Neill, Lucy Richards, Peter Salem & Maggie Service.

PRESS

'The award-winning Mighty Boosh director Cal McCrystal commands this surreal musical comedy, in which Stephen, inspired by 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', embarks on a quest to stir up Christmas cheer. The name may suggest one of those awful blue comedies that seasonally plague us like smutty flies on the Christmas pudding, but ‘Stephen And The Sexy Partridge’ is – within its own deliberately knockabout limits – a classy, terrifically likeable exercise in polished surrealism. The plot, such as it is, takes the form of a daft riff on ‘A Christmas Carol’, in which the everyman-ish Stephen is taken under the not so proverbial wing of the cosmic Sexy Partridge (co-writers Finnian O’Neill and Lily Bevan play the pair). The purpose? To have his laughably minor personal faults corrected via encounters with outlandish manifestations of the 12 days of Christmas. It’s essentially a dozen very silly, very loosely strung together vignettes, but they’re pulled off with such a surfeit of imagination and good humour that dramaturgical flimsiness feels rather beside the point. Much of the credit must lie with director Cal McCrystal and choreographer Robyn Simpson, who drill crisply executed, giddily inventive physicality into such potentially overegged scenarios as the ‘Four Calling Birds’ and ‘Matthew Bourne’s Gay Swan Lake’. It’s safe to say that those lured in by McCrystal’s previous work of directing The Mighty Boosh’s early stage shows will cackle in delight. '
Time Out

'★★★★★ Stephen is not the best boyfriend Chanelle has ever had and she tells him so without mercy. Chanelle is a shrew, but her boyfriend is a kindly, eager person and is determined to make her think better of him by finding her a wonderful overpriced present! In Oxford Street he is confronted by the whole company pressurising him into buying rubbish with a satirical version of “Who Will Buy.” Luckily he is adopted by a personal shopper – A sexy Partridge who sings her song “I am the Partridge” giving an ingenious parody on that most complicated of the Lennon/McCartney canon “I am the Walrus”. Finnian O’Neill, who is one of the authors, plays Stephen as a loveable idiot with a constant beaming smile and co-author Lily Bevan is the sexiest partridge in town. Based on “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, this is definitely an ensemble piece and in addition to the authors, there are seven incredibly funny and talented female actors playing a plethora of roles. There are only nine of them in total, so when it gets to number ten, they have run out of actors, so puppets, paper dolls and potatoes are brought in to represent the final numbers. It is chock full of clever parodies, like the French hens who launch into Gilbert and Sullivan “Three little hens from France”, but there is also some original music composed and played by Peter Salem. There is much micky taking of celebrities – including Sarah Palin, Matthew Bourne and even the Lord of the Rings. Two of the show stopping items are the ridiculous leaping lords and the all male Swan Lake with the girls in white costumes and male accoutrements. These actors are wonderful, crazy and totally uninhibited – choreographed by Robyn Sympson and directed with a firm hand by Cal McCrystal who nevertheless allows them full rein for their sense of humour. Between them all, they have produced probably the silliest, most hilarious production in town and if you need something to get you into the Christmas spirit this is just the thing.'
What's On Stage

'SHE is a partridge, a sexy partridge, and in all the best ways a very game bird. He is Stephen, a flawed insensitive boyfriend, who's game for a laugh. After Stephen rows with his girlfriend, he and Partridge set off on a magical mystery tour of London where, in a surreal twist, they meet the characters from classic ditty The 12 Days of Christmas. The whole adventure is swept along on a host of well known pop and show tunes with wry new lyrics that have a sting in their tail. If it sounds wacky that's because it is, but in a zesty tongue in cheek way. Director Cal McCrystal has the original Mighty Boosh stage shows to his credits and there are hints of this level of absurdity in action. The two writers are also the stars of the show and Lily Bevan makes for a splendidly sexy Partridge, while Finnian O'Neill as Stephen has a flair for comic understatement. The rest of the cast morph adeptly from one character role to the next and Georgia Lowe's visually elegant set is just understated enough to compliment the high cabaret it hosts. If you like tradition mixed up in a hotchpotch of imagination gone wild, this is just the place to be this Yuletide season.'
Islington Gazette

'It is unlikely that Gordon Brown would see eye to eye with the feathered philanthropist at the heart of this subversive Christmas romp: as a corseted partridge tells us that Christmas is about more than spending money, you can hear the Labour cabinet choke. Osip Theatre's crazed and ebullient story of one man and a game chick transforms the twelve days of Christmas into an episodic orgy of insurgent hens, dancing potatoes and eloquent cattle. Finnian O'Neill as Stephen, the beleaguered boyfriend bent on procuring a faceted gift to appease his malcontent missus, and Lily Bevan as the stoic-yet-tender partridge in need of a pluck, offer performances as assured and audacious as the script that the two co-wrote. With daft aplomb and lego-like expressiveness, Stephen traverses a peculiar ethical-gauntlet: moustached ballerinas with mock-knobs (one of which rivalled an aubergine for size) perform Gay Swan Lake; a squad of beaked Vicky Pollards are four calling birds to forget; a trio of free-range French hens, recently emancipated from their Bastille-batteries, awaken Stephen to farmyard cruelty; and a group of geeks (a pun on geese), whose pastimes include sadomasochism and Lemon Fanta, compete for five gold rings in a parody of The Weakest Link. The production's wit, bravura and skilful execution hatch a production which, at its close, brought a dominantly youthful audience to their feet. On a set that resembled a giant chessboard smeared in bronzer (designed by Georgina Lowe), the entire ensemble perform with sustained bravado - quite a feat given the maniacal pace the play runs at. Musical director Peter Salem's side-line contribution was both polished and vital. The sporadically reappearing caricature of Sarah Palin - evidently an appendage to a script originally penned many months before Palin announced her political credentials to the world - offered a tone of comedy that was, quite unlike the rest of the play, rather predictable. That said, the spirit of the piece - unabashed, unselfconscious farce - allows any minor slips to be absorbed by the overriding atmosphere of fun and mayhem. A satisfying irony was achieved thanks to the play's blatant moral curriculum. If it were any less contrived - winks and piano bursts announce Stephen's moral progression - one might be tempted to take it seriously. As it is, Bevan and O'Neill manage, by grossly exposing the text's moral hinges, to question the reliance of dramatic and literary narrative on hackneyed, Aristotelian moral plot-structures and devices. By emphatically imitating narrative convention, convention is brought under scrutiny. His twelve-day odyssey complete, our reformed protagonist returns to his girlfriend bearing a notably humane Christmas offering: '
The British Theatre Guide

'One of the funniest offerings in the West End this season …Tickets to this short, sweet, Christmas show should be a must on everybody’s Christmas shopping list this year'
The Stage

'In Stephen and the Sexy Partridge a ‘Scroogey git’ is given a seasonal makeover after spending time with supernatural apparitions. But instead of usual trio of Christmas ghosts, Stephen gets a surreal tour through the Twelve Days of Christmas, guided by an intergalactic superhero known as Partridge. With help from the other characters from the carol, Partridge shows Stephen how to be kind, how to listen and how to dance, all to win back his girlfriend Chanel. Will he succeed? Or will he find something else along the way? The premise is familiar and the plot is self-consciously twee; lights go on and music plays when the dippy Stephen realises various profundities. But this couldn’t be further from traditional holiday schmaltz. The four calling birds are sex line operators, the swans a-swimming perform ‘gay Swan Lake’ and Anne Robinson presents a familiar quiz show called 5 Gold Rings. It's an all-singing, all-dancing comedy show. Musical Director Peter Salem ably accompanies both original material and hilarious reworkings of Beyonce, the Pussy Cat Dolls and The Beatles, and the slick choreography goes from ballet to Bollywood. The show is very silly but it’s also rather clever – references to Star Wars, The Weakest Link and ‘Allo ‘Allo are juxtaposed with nods to Shakespeare, Dickens and David Ives. The writers, Finnian O’Neill and Lily Bevan, are charming as the eponymous heroes, and the entire ensemble (Pandora Colin, Gemma Whelan, Lorna Beckett, Lizzie Winkler, Lucia McAnespie, Maggie Service) are absolutely terrific, each playing several outrageous characters with fantastic comic flair. Pandora Colin as the Magic Pear and Gemma Whelan as the spectacularly awful Chanel are particularly memorable. A grown up Panto for the very young at heart, Stephen and the Sexy Partridge probably won’t inspire an epiphany about the true meaning of Christmas. However, it is festive, side-splittingly funny and wonderfully uplifting- truly in the spirit of the season. '
What's On Stage

YEAR
2008