Written and performed by: Maddy and Marina Bye
Real-life siblings Maddy and Marina Bye channel their madcap character comedy into a daft, high-concept show about hacking into people’s dreams. It’s a work in progress and still needs a fair bit of polishing but there’s plenty to laugh at.
Our two main characters are scientists working for the Design Optimising Dream Organisation or DODO (pronounced doo-doo) for short. Though their costumes are just simple white lab coats, we learn that one is a jaded older man whose wife and children have been kidnapped and the other is a youngster doing work experience at the organisation.
There’s plenty of audience participation as a dream helmet is placed on the heads of various spectators, who are also sometimes dragged onto stage. Their dreams are acted out by the siblings and run the Freudian gamut from anxiety dream to weird sex fantasy. It’s a perfect vehicle for the siblings’ absurdist sketches as they spiral off into flights of fancy. In one particularly hilarious reverie they become veiled facilitators of a centre for spiritual healing and spout ASMR-like yogic nonsense mixed with names of footballers and repeated invitations to breathe in and out.
As the story develops, there’s a darker side to what’s going on at the dream organisation and the backstory of the scientists is explored in a satisfying arc. The charm and sometimes the limitation of the performance is their acknowledgement of their slapdash approach to clowning. The costumes aren’t supposed to be convincing, they’re supposed to be silly. The acting is over-the-top often to the point where they’re cracking each other up, and the audience is in on the joke too. There’s perhaps too much reliance on American stereotypes and the songs could be funnier, but it’s clear that the pair are hugely talented and it’s a show with great potential.
Reviewed on May 23 2025
