Rob Kemp
Northern stage 
12th October 2018
Rob Kemp is a comedian and also one that has a decent set of lungs on him. This show is a unique mishmash of ideas. Rob comes from the logical, but lazy school of thinking of write what you know and he certainly knows his Elvis and his Evil Dead 2. Rob asked if anyone had seen the show before, to which me and one other person admitted to. Although in my case it’s the first time I intentionally went to see the show, after mistakenly wandering into the wrong show and spending the first half of the show dwelling on it, none of that this time.
So the show is as Rob says after his 5 minutes of stand up intro, essentially a concert and insists the audience treat it as such, by singing clapping and such. He then asks me what we should do? so I just repeat what he just said, which got more of a laugh than most of my jokes ever did on stage! That was my audience participation done. Just about everyone does what he asked for, except the odd baffled audience member who don’t understand what’s happening, perhaps they were expecting a show about a dead Elvis? Who knows.
After he’s explained the concept of the show Rob enters the stage for the second time to the theme music of 2001 a space oddity. Rob is a very funny performer and seems to do the show as if it was still his first and maybe his last. So the concept of the show is retelling the story of the film the evil dead 2, through Elvis songs via the films protagonist Ash. Not Elvis Costello as he says in case people were expecting Oliver’s army of
He goes through all the classics, replacing the lyrics to match parts of the film, which are played on the overhead screen in the background. Starting with jail house rock (in a state of shock), the devil in disguise and I’m all shook up, with Rob’s actions on stage matching what happens to Ash in real time, with some very special effects indeed and some wicked props to boot. There’s fake plate smashing, simulated dismemberments, fake blood, chainsaws, a shotgun the lot. It’s the craziest one man musical you will probably ever see.
This show was great, even better on second viewing and ever so slightly longer than the show I saw, which had the usual Edinburgh festival time restrictions. It’s improved along the way and I’m sure all the multiple awards the show has been nominated for and won hasn’t hurt the performance. Watch it while you can. Remaining dates in the tour and the useful website is below. He even joked about doing other themed shows with puns like Beatles-juice and Wham-bo, all suggestions he’s had on tour, but sadly he won’t be doing any of them.
He ended the show by saying he hoped everyone enjoyed the show and if you didn’t then tell someone to go who you hate.
Remaining tour dates:
18th October Abertoiir horror festival, Aberystwyth university, Penglais campus
26th October Glee club , the Arcadian, Birmingham
27th October Glee club, Cardiff
30th October Quarry theatre , St. Peter’s street, Bedford
Website: www.theelvisdead.com
Twitter : @robotkemp
Email : info@theelvisdead.com
Frank Cromartie Murphy
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