POLICE COPS IN SPACE | ASSEMBLY ROXY, EDINBURGH FRINGE
★★★★
“Police Cops use the farce to take your brain to another dimension…”
Sci-fi on the Fringe can be hit or miss – it’s more than three decades since Saucy Jack and his Space Vixens took Edinburgh by storm, becoming a cult phenomenon in the process. Judging by the response to Police Cops In Space, Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe are more than filling the footsteps of the Vixens’ and their glitter boots.
The sequel to Police Cops The Musical, Police Cops In Space might not be a musical but, some 12 years after they introduced the world to the Space Cops, it marks the return of writers and creators Hunt, Parkinson and Roe, in a new vehicle as they also star in this madcap hour of interstellar mayhem.
Tapping into the currently en vogue art of spoofing 80’s Hollywood, there’s plenty a nod and a wink for film fans to chuckle at in this chaotic, high energy hour, which finds the last of the Police Cops battling the evil robot overlord Tanner and his mechanical army.
Having disposed of Jimmy Johnson, the ‘best damn police cop ever’, Tanner embarks on a quest to rid the universe of ‘every last police cop’ and appears to have succeeded until Jimmy’s orphaned, directionless adult son, Sammy, faces his destiny by taking on the mantle of ‘the very last Police Cop alive’. And he has a quest of his own, to avenge his dad’s death and defeat Tanner’s plans to invade Earth… with only the help of Ranger, the worst space pilot in the galaxy.
As Sammy meets a miss-mash of ever more outrageous and in one case scarcely clad characters along the way (all played with wild abandon by the terrific trio), what the show lacks in expensive props and budget it more than makes up for invention and imagination, often absurdly so. It’s surreal, physical and very funny, though you’ll likely laugh even harder with a couple of drinks inside you before joining the queue to get in. Be warned, it snakes around the building so get there early if you want to sit at the front.
Hunt, Parkinson and Roe know their material well enough to riff around the edges when required, retaining an element of danger as they connect effortlessly with their adoring audience from blast off to curtain call – all three put in a full on shift.
While overarching themes of redemption, friendship, mostly of a bromantic nature (some more homoerotic than others), Police Cops In Space is often a ‘masculine campfest’ and all the better for it. However, if you want to discover how a skipping routine and a dance competition fit into the action, you’ll have to beam up a ticket while you can.
As the audience takes their seats at the top of the show, The Prodigy blast from speakers, promising, ‘I’ll take your brain to another dimension’, Hunt, Parkinson and Roe do just that. May the farce be with you!
Full details and tickets HERE
