Dr Blood's Old Travelling Show
Imitating the Dog and Leeds Playhouse’s macabre and entertaining tale of corruption, greed and comeuppance
Drawing on carnival and Vaudeville traditions, with a punk-rock soundtrack by composer James Hamilton, Imitating the Dog puts on one hell of a show. It’s an old story – the devil tempts, but humans choose to be tempted – told with flair and style.
Matt Prendergast is enormous fun as Dr Blood/Mr Gorgon, watching his targets fall one by one and gleefully claiming their souls. Laura Atherton and Keicha Greenidge, as his sidekicks and assorted doomed characters, are charismatic and entertaining.
The whole aesthetic, designed by Laura Hopkins, has shades of The Rocky Horror Show, 1927’s shows and charity shop goth, and evokes real menace and mystery, even surrounded by locked-down students’ halls of residence on Lancaster University’s Covid-19-riddled campus.
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Some of the sound levels aren’t quite right in the outdoor, socially distanced space, but given the circumstances in which they are managing to put on a show, it’s a minor complaint. The visuals get a little confusing at times, too, with multiple shots of the same character in real life, on screen and in puppet-form making it hard to know where to look.
Wherever you choose, though, it’s easy to get thoroughly caught up in this pleasingly grotesque tale of greed, corruption and extremely bloody murder.
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