Pirates: You Wouldn’t Steal A Boat Review

Written by Cathie for Theatre and Tonic.

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review. All opinions are our own.

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Many individuals would remember the ‘you wouldn’t steal a movie’ adverts from the early 00s. This frankly absurd play performed by Spruce Moose Comedy takes this concept further with You Wouldn’t Steal A Boat. Although it's 1705 and on the high seas, this play takes a definite low-brow but highly comedic parody approach to the pirate tropes we all know and love so well.

We very quickly meet Sharkbait’ Mulligan (Co-writer Matthew Davies) who along with his clever but overly compliant intern ‘Louis’ (Ahmed Amer), are swiftly forced to walk the plank and are stranded because of the evil Captain Codpiece's (Barnaby Evans) greed for a mysterious treasure. In classic pirate tropes, Sharkbait and Louis survive their marooning and are determined to find the treasure first. Filled with piratic lust for gold, Sharkbait and Louis assemble their own team. They encounter a vibrant and quirky cast of characters, portrayed by Alexander Denley Spencer, who alternately assist and comically obstruct their pursuit. Finally, when all seems desperate they are joined by a whimsical parody of Pirates of the Caribbean’s Will Turner (Ariel Hebditch), who perpetually yearns for his love, speaks in poetic riddles and references many of his other famous 00's films. 

The play is short, snazzy, and very fun, and it lasts 50 minutes, while it delights in breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the audience in a very fun way. Props are broken and the low production budget is often mocked, much to the giggles of the audience and the very loosely constructed plot is filled with recurring gags including mermaids, drinking rum, character corruption and a very strange beast with daddy issues which feasts upon unseen crew members. It is fabulous to see a show be so fun and not take itself seriously whilst feeling like a classic of the fringe theatre with a lot of future potential. My only bugbear was the use of lighting in this show. The lights were completely turned off to leave the room in total darkness and then brightly on a total of 17 times in this short show. It frankly gave me and several others a headache and marred what was otherwise a marvellous experience.

This was an enormously fun show which had both myself and the audience in regular stitches of laughter. It highlights all the fun of the Golden Age of Piracy and feels bursting with talent and potential. If you enjoy absurd sketches, scathing satire and uproarious pirate skulduggery then this is definitely the show for you.

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆