Bloody Medea!!! – Harrogate Theatre

There’s a moment at a lot of family gatherings where children are present when one of them will say “Let’s put on a show”. A few hours later, all the adults have to sit around a watch the resulting mayhem. There’s some semblance of plot, a lot of “No wait, I need to start over”, perhaps a little “Can you make this sound for me?”, and more that a bit of shouting at a younger sibling to turn on and off the big light or asking Alexa to play music. That’s the energy April Small brings to Bloody Medea!!!.

This one act production is a clown retelling of the story of Medea, a prominent witch from Greek mythology. She helped Jason steal the Golden Fleece from her father, then ran away with him, escaping by chopping up her own brother and later going on to kill her own children, when Jason left her for a more socially acceptable woman. The story is a brutal tragedy, and there’s perhaps an element of that in turning the whole thing into a clowning act.

Small is a very talented clown. She gurns excellently, and has the audience laughing heartily as she makes putting on a simple production look incredibly complicated. Props and scenery are badly painted cardboard, revealed with a self conscious but happy grin; audience members are pulled up to help with simple but effective magic tricks and staging, or lead in chanted choral singsongs; scenes are started and restarted until they are done right. The whole thing is a sort of adorable chaos. Occasionally, Small drops the façade of incompetence and performs some excellent classic sounding monologues, showing that there is a talented actress inside the buffoon. It’s undeniable fun, even if it’s a bit baffling.

It doesn’t all land. There are a lot of repetitive skits and bits, which is the point in clowning but can get a bit tedious at times. There’s a nod towards what might be the true story of Medea, that of a foreign woman vilified by playwrights, but it feels like a rushed and tacked on ending rather than being the heart of the show as the advertising seems to suggest. The whole things feels like family theatre for adults, which is fun, but slightly limiting if Small wanted to use clowning to make her audience feel more than a befuddled bemusement about her intentions with the confusingly paced piece.

Overall, Bloody Medea!!! is a fun and entertaining hour and a bit of clowning, a show that would do well at Edinburgh Fringe or similar festivals, best enjoyed after a few glasses of wine or perhaps a Christmas dinner. It’s charming, if ultimately a bit of a mess, although at least that feels like it’s mostly the intention.