REVIEW: Graeme of Thrones at the Pavilion Theatre, Worthing

Game of Thrones is well-known for many things: swords, dragons and a healthy distain for keeping characters alive '“ and keeping their clothes on.
Picture: Paul WilkinsonPicture: Paul Wilkinson
Picture: Paul Wilkinson

But Sansa Stark blowing heart-shaped confetti through her legs using a leafblower doesn’t rank highly on the list.

Yet this was what audience-goers were witness to at last night’s show – a parody of the hit fantasy series so surreal at times that it made Bran Stark’s visions look like Eastenders.

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Unsurprisingly the show wasn’t a traditional episode-by-episode parody, but when you’ve got more than 50 hours of TV to squeeze into two hours that’s a sensible approach.

(Left to right) Mark Davison, Ali Brice and Libby Northedge as Paul, Graeme and Bryony. Picture: Marilyn Kingwill(Left to right) Mark Davison, Ali Brice and Libby Northedge as Paul, Graeme and Bryony. Picture: Marilyn Kingwill
(Left to right) Mark Davison, Ali Brice and Libby Northedge as Paul, Graeme and Bryony. Picture: Marilyn Kingwill

Instead it was more of a mockumentary – geeky actors trying and failing to get their rubbish Game of Thrones adaptation into the West End.

The subject matter might be the battles of Westeros, but this show owes much more to British comedies. Imagine the awkwardness of Extras with the silliness of Monty Python and lead characters as pathetic as Alan Partridge.

Graeme, his best friend Paul and Bryony, the girl he fancied at school, bring some of the key movers of the Seven Kingdoms to life – with varying levels of success.

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Bryony’s Catelyn Stark was more reminiscent of Liza Minelli, but the worse the impressions were, the more the show worked.

Khal Drogo serenading Daenerys Targaryen with ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ in Dothraki; an interpretative dance of the boar that killed Robert Baratheon, featuring a regurgitated packet of ham; The Mountain, aka. a member of the audience, popping Oberyn Martell’s eyeballs – or rather, a pair of jam doughnuts.

The list of mad moments is longer than the Wall itself.

Some of my fellow audience members, clearly avid fans of the series, didn’t share my enthusiam for the sheer weirdness and dry humour of the show, which seemed more at home at a fringe festival than the Pavilion.

But let’s face it – if you can accept Littlefinger’s accent, you can accept anything.