Edinburgh 2013: Knightmare Live - The 'dungeoneer' is back
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Your support makes all the difference.“This is not entry level stuff,” warns Lord Fear (joyfully evil Tom Bell) as he welcomes us to this very special Kickstarter-funded production of cult Eighties TV show Knightmare Live. He needn't worry, each audience member is clearly a fan.
The ‘dungeoneer’ and his two companions; volunteers from the cast of a completely different Edinburgh show, might be the only ones not to know the name of the helmet of justice, or to cheer hysterically when the Dungeon Master, Lord Treguard (a suave Paul Flannery) appears on stage.
Much of the humour comes from the dungeoneer’s sheer ignorance of the show. At one point he's asked what he is on a quest for, after a long pause he mumbles,”sword?” and gets shouted down by the audience (it was the crown, d’oh).
Part parody, part panto, part quiz show, the wonderfully low-fi virtual reality of the TV series has been translated on stage into low-budget sets, the crowning glory of which is a Level One War Demon, aka a papier mâchéd face on a wall, that challenges the dungeoneer, it’s eyes spinning independently of each other.
If you loved the original Knightmare, you’ll adore the nostalgia value of the original props and in-jokes, but what makes Knightmare Live really great is the ad-libbing from the cast, whose banter never misses a beat as they playfully mess with the rules of the game.
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