@ Assembly George Square Studios, Edinburgh, until Mon 31 Aug 2015 @ 17:00
Say what you like about Game of Thrones—and people have said plenty—but it is undeniably a well-crafted, highly visceral show. It is an intelligent exploration of just how nasty humans can be. Sadly, Baby Wants Candy’s version has all of the venal crassness and almost none of the wit.
Their musical works on the assumption that those seeing it have a definite interest in GOT, and is pitched at the obsessive fan rather than the casual observer. This makes perfect sense. What doesn’t, is how weak most of the skewering is. Thrones! is like Lord of the Rings crossed with porn. Sam is a weed who soils himself. The White Walkers have frozen penises. As a demonstration of lack of imagination, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Moreover, during the rehearsal process, someone really should have considered whether listing other pop culture references, apropos of nothing more than that they exist, funny? Is it? Because as a skit, it crops up in several songs; and on the seventh or eighth mention, whatever value the joke may have originally had, has long gone.
There are some bright spots. A musical number between Joffrey and Ramsay—the two most hated characters—is superb, with a neat subversion of the show’s occasional over reliance on rape (‘stuck on a difficult plot?’), and is a joke that makes the entire audience gasp. However, this doesn’t work so well placed next to Jorah claiming that if he were married to Daenerys, he’d make sure to find her clitoris. You can’t have your crappy cake and eat it too.