Review: SPITTING IMAGE THE MUSICAL at the Phoenix Theatre

In true Spitting Image style, Idiots Assemble aims its disdain at everyone: celebrities, royalty and politicians, boomers and Gen-Z, woke and right-wing. But the script is woefully lazy. The plot features one gaggle of public figures going on a quest to face off against another gaggle of public figures. Some of the jokes date from about 2016- Greta Thunberg harps on about climate change, Idris Elba might be the next Bond –while some seem to have wandered in from the 1990s- Tom Cruise is short, John Major had an affair (there is only one gag about each character in Idiots Assemble, repeated ad nauseum). It’s unoriginal, uninteresting and seriously unfunny. I can’t think of a single joke which didn’t go for the lowest-hanging fruit. Ditto the songs, which add nothing to the show and don’t suit Spitting Image’s style. The Smorgasbord of poorly-crammed in syllables get lost in the sound mix. Plus, the songs include two Lion King parodies. How hard is it for a writer to watch more than one Disney movie?!

Idiots Assemble takes the easy way out by using pre-recorded dialogue, which removes any chance of ad-libs or spontaneity. Idiots Assemble would benefit from some a dash of improv and anarchism, but the pre-recorded dialogue prevents this. The onstage puppeteers are excellent, but when half the shows in London feature puppets in some way or other, Idiots Assemble doesn’t rival Life of Pi or My Neighbour Totoro in terms of the puppets’ design or the way they’re used.

If you love Spitting Image on the telly, maybe you’ll have more patience for all this than I did. But if you want to watch a sneery, sweary, smutty satire, go for Book of Mormon instead. Because Idiots Assemble is seriously lacking in brains, barbs, or any kind of inventiveness.

…. and I haven’t even mentioned the dancing penises.