By Colin Flaherty
Lucifer (Lucy to his “friends” and played by Vince Milesi) is relaunching Hell much like you would with a nightclub. His new intern (Michelle Brasier) is smitten with Lucy but he has his eyes on Jesus (played by real life brother Leo Milesi in a creepy twist). This love triangle in the eternal inferno was played out wonderfully through numerous songs and lots of cheeky innuendo.
Vince Milesi played the title role beautifully with the all charm of a Vegas performer and threw in an appropriate cruel streak with some blatent intimidation and humiliation. As Lucy tried to get us excited about the forthcoming evil decadence, this clearly bipolar character would suddenly be in a violent rage at the slightest error or mishap. Brasier’s portrayal of Intern the Intern was spot on. This timid naïve creature tiptoed around her boss but found a strong voice through song.
There were plenty of laughs to be had with all the off-colour lines and wicked innuendo. Some gentle witty jabs were thrown the way of Christianity but nothing too offensive. The fun plot weaved through some ridiculous and slightly disturbing scenarios and the characters would regularly bump and grind with anything that wasn’t nailed down for a bit giggling at audience discomfort. Be prepared for plenty of comical simulated sex acts.
The musical component was wonderful and propelled the story along with plenty of colour and movement in the form of some dance moves. With either keyboard accompaniment or a backing track, the cast belted out a number of current popular songs and a few that appeared to be originals. They all were great singers and there was a nice touch with the Mike Whitney character given a deliberately shonky singing voice (he may have sold his soul to become a star, but Satan wasn’t a miracle worker).
The ending of the show was quite abrupt with the audience expecting some sort of clear resolution to the story but it was not to be. The houselights went up and we were a little confused about how things would pan out between the main characters. Either I missed something important in the lyrics of the final song or we were taught the lesson that you rarely get exactly what you want in Hell. Despite the vague conclusion this was a fun piece of raunchy musical comedy that will delight.
Here’s Lucy! Camp as Hell is on at Upstairs at Errol’s at 9:15pm until October 4
http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/here-s-lucy-camp-as-hell/