Hailing from Tāmaki Makaurau, Captain Festus McBoyle’s Travellin’ Variety Show is high-energy entertainment best suited for children 10 and under with some underlying issues regarding sound and content.

We have three performers, “Captain Festus” (Rich Manic) who is, of course the Captain, the ringmaster, and the lead singer of all the songs; “The Strong Man” (Gareth Price) who plays guitar and is cheeky without taking the spotlight; and “The Wife” (Larissa Lofley) who at one point takes to, “the drums”, but largely feels superfluous and included to provide a female character, rather than to give her anything concrete to achieve.  

What is billed as, “a variety show” is, in fact, essentially a series of songs. I took a theatre-savvy 8 year-old child with me so I could ascertain her reaction and was told very clearly, “I kept wondering when there would be a story” but also, “I really liked the costumes and the moustaches.” Touché. I also longed for a narrative or at least some variety but could not fault the costumes, nor moustaches. 

The lack of variety is unfortunate as there is a lot to like about this show. The performances are high-energy and the song lyrics are original and clever – when we can hear them. The choice of microphones means that we pick up extra from the guitar, and the drop-mic for Captain Festus is not enough to pick up his voice when audience interaction is also being had. We lose almost entire songs because they are strummed out by guitar and drummed out by an audience being told to stand and march and, “aargh, me’ hearties.” 

An over-use of smoke machine sees (and hears) the fire alarm go off at a late stage in the show. While the performers deal with this well and it is turned off after a couple of minutes, it gives this reviewer pause. No one wants to be the square who shuts the show down, but in a theatre environment, if an active fire alarm is triggered then the theatre should be evacuated, particularly when there are people who will find it difficult to remove themselves such as small children. 

I enjoyed this show. Puerile comedy is not my scene and I always take children’s theatre with a grain of salt, but, as dubbed by Chris Knox “The Punk Rock Pirates”, I do agree that The Festus team offer, “More Grit and Less Sugar.” A few sound tweaks and possibly a couple of RSA jokes removed and I would happily recommend this.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer