Happy Hour for Miserable Children at the Herald Theatre

Theatre Beating's latest offering boldly attempts to establish a new form of cabaret theatre. The show throws together all the right ingredients but the formality of the Herald Theatre proved a major obstacle to the kind of the ambience the work demands.

With a bit more imagination the Aotea Centre might have given over one of their foyer bars and allowed the company to conjure up a genuine cabaret setting.

Barnie Duncan and Trygve Wakenshaw are an engaging comedy duo who look like they might have wondered off the set of a classic Keystone comedy.

They displayed an impressive range of physical theatre skills that were neatly synchronised with the whiz-bang sound effects emanating from Sam Hamilton's eclectic assemblage of musical instruments.

The show pays homage to the silent movies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton with a series of inventive gags that find surprising uses for power tools and building materials.

Cordless drills bring forth a pair of battling cyborgs and a couple of saw-horses are animated in an X-rated romance.

But the spirit of the silent movie era is most convincingly evoked in tender moments like the shared lunch on a see-saw that delivers an appealing mixture of pathos and humour.

The gags are strung together on a threadbare plot that sees a strip club transformed into a church. Yvette Parsons plays a vaudeville villain and although she has some clever lines she struggles to carry off the cabaret-style singing.

With a running time of just under an hour, the show is well suited for a festival context but seemed to lack the substance needed for a standalone work.

However, there are plenty of reasons to enjoy the Happy Hour. The performance style is an intriguing hybrid and it is difficult to fault the energy and enthusiasm of the whole enterprise.

* Happy Hour for Miserable Children at the Herald Theatre, until September 30