Dundee Fringe 20/09/24
Have you ever had a fever dream that was also a musical comedy? Well, if you’re interested in the experience then I cannot recommend highly enough Fever Peach’s new show, the title of which is too long to even abbreviate (YGMFWYPMFWYHMPFYGMFAWAFP?).
The stage was empty save for the two bandmates, Scott Redmond and Andy Bullick, in Thai boxing shorts lit in a bright white light that turned blue once the audience were seated. It began on a sombre note with the song ‘Fire on a Submarine’ wherein a submarine is, confoundingly, on fire. Redmond and Bullick have the stage presence of rockstars in the small theatre room, and the audience is compelled to be in their thrall from the get-go.
The show has some of that classic Fever Peach energy that makes every performance interesting, as well as some exciting new material. My personal favourite was their new song ‘Beard of Bees’ which provided the curious experience of sticking post-it notes with bees drawn on them to the faces of Bullick and Redmond. I will not lie, this as well as some other dance related numbers really engaged my inner child- a truly gleeful experience as an audience member. Not to say that the show was PG, nor entirely bright in tone, the band performed many numbers that resonated with a sense of loneliness- something they declared a unifying theme of this work-in-progress.
Of these, the poetry was particularly solemn, though it did not at all overshadow the hilarity of the performance. Moments such as these lent a certain depth to the brevity of the performance and the bandmates' deftness with a punchline made the show as a whole joyful. Bullick and Redmond ooze charisma like water into a leaky submarine- and rather like a submarine on fire, the duo flourish in juxtaposition so you never quite know what you’re going to get.
Other highlights included songs about flirting with classic monsters, being abducted by aliens on a date, and Queen as chimpanzees. The audience were truly kept on the edge of our seats, whether it was because we were being called upon to dance or, in one audience member’s case, to be lifted through the air. Fever Peach are both frenetic and funny, and this show was delightfully absurd- the kind of lunacy that leaves you creasing. Still, I am not entirely convinced the whole thing was real.
Written by Hannah Linda Hamilton, Editor-in-Chief of The Magdalen
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