Writers: Kluane Saunders, Ross Tomlinson, Tom O’Kelly and Lucy Buncombe
Director: Alex Pritchett
“Blow it up!”
Hot from the newly hatched WIT Theatre Company, a tight-knit team whose NewsRevue triumphed at the Canal Café Theatre this summer, Remember, Remember is a ‘deliberately misinformed’ comic take on the Gunpowder Plot.
Assuming the stance that history can never be fully verified, the WIT players have jointly penned a script embracing all the bizarre and conflicting notions around this dubious episode. “Don’t believe what your teachers told you in Year 9.”
They’ve dragged the slightly unpromising historical action – dissatisfied Papist Guy Fawkes and co-conspirators fail to blow up the anti-Catholic Houses of Parliament in 1605 – kicking and preening into today’s similarly divided, uncivilly warring times. High levels of hilarity have been achieved by the creative re-positioning of flamboyant ruff-wearer King James I as an out-and-out tyrannical twink, Guy Fawkes as a Blackadder Flashheart, and the Gunpowder Plot itself as a jealously contested bitchfest.
True to Shakespearean and current gender-swapping norms, the girls in the WIT squad are cast as major players Guy Fawkes and Robert Catesby, while the boys are camp as Christmas in the remaining roles: King James I, Anne of Denmark and sub-plotters Andy and Gary.
Lucy Buncombe as Guy Fawkes is a brilliantly confident schemer, all overbearing swagger, tossed tresses and blatant manspreading. Kluane Saunders is suitably geeky and bookish as the easily cowed, overlooked Plot progenitor Robert Catesby. In his ‘Rob-olutionary’ T-shirt, he’s repeatedly derided as “A bit of a dishcloth.”
Ross Tomlinson, with creepy Scotto voce (reminiscent of Alan Cumming at his most arch), is priceless as King James I, in pink ballerina get-up, ribbons, bows and a hideously suppurating gouty papier-mâché foot. Tom O’Kelly is equally amusing as the super buxom, twerking Anne of ‘Double D’ Denmark. As camp conspirators Andy and Gary, the boys are flawless, relentlessly teasing, slating, fawning and vogueing. “If anyone finds out what we’re doing down here, we’ll be hung, drawn and fingered!”
There’s massive song-and-dance synergy in this quipping quartet: they’re loud and brash but harmonious, and all the choreo and Drag Race-style gesturing is bang on the money and the moment. There’s even a direct homage to RuPaul, when Fawkes tells Catesby he must “Furtively, underhandedly connect with the King.”
Numerous comic songs are woven into the action, and even when the lyrics are terrible, they’re belted out with absolute conviction. “Oh Bobbie” warbles James I, lovestruck by Catesby, “You’re my guiding light, ever so divinely right, I thought that I had no way out, until you came and drained my gout.” Musical Director Isabella Guilar deserves high praise for managing to accommodate so many weird and unwieldy words in her catchy melodic arrangements.
There’s so much material packed into Remember, Remember that even historical purists will appreciate the attention to detail, and smart subversion. It’s arguably educational: rare truths are highlighted, such as Guy Fawkes using the name ‘John Johnson’ to hire cellars under the Houses of Parliament. “That bit’s real.”
The show is also peppered with funny, anachronistic falsehoods and gags. “Deep in Mme. Tussauds, the Rob-olutionaries gathered.” And when Catesby puts on his buckled conspirator’s hat, Andy and Gary scream, “You look just like Jessie in Toy Story!”
There really isn’t any need for a slick, satisfying ending – the joy is in the richly inventive characterisation – but Remember, Remember fizzes rather than fizzles right ’til the end.
The WIT-sters must have had a blast putting the show together, and watching it feels like a privileged glimpse of the whole fun-and-games process. Remember, Remember goes all too quickly: being in the infectiously joyous gang for an hour doesn’t feel like long enough. The Golden Goose is packed out on review night, and everyone standing, whooping and clapping as the actors took their bows.
NewsRevue was a great test pad for these insanely talented, thoroughly experienced writer-players, and it’ll be worth watching where they point their satirical searchlight next.
Remember, Remember deserves to become an autumnal staple (opening up a new pantomimic season?), with swapped-in stanzas to reflect the times (something like NewsRevue, and The Mikado’s ‘Little List’). Long may it run.
Reviewed on 3 October 2025
