Kubrick³

If the intention behind Kubrick3 was to combine the depressingly scatalogical humour of Bottom with a performing style more befitting the Krankies, then mission accomplished. This is a bizarre tactic to take in telling what should be a compelling and multilayered story, and unfortunately it never really pays off.

Taking its inspiration from the stranger-than-fiction tale of Alan Conway, a notorious fantasist who for years exploited the kindness and credulity of others by claiming to be the director Stanley Kubrick (despite his lack of an American accent, beard or any knowledge of cinema), Kubrick3 wastes this promising material by failing to give the audience any reason why it should care. As Conway's son confronts his father's ghost (played by multiple actors, who all act in roughly the same style), we can share the younger Conway's disgust, but lack his motive for unravelling the fraudster's mystery.

Flashbacks devolve into a series of sketches which, despite raising laughs with a few one-liners (the best of which comes when one character introduces themselves as "not plot-relevant"), really only serve to kill time. What we know at the end of the show is what we knew within the first five minutes: Conway was a sad failure of a man who wished to be somebody else. Issues of identity and self-delusion are frequently raked over, but never investigated in any depth. This might be forgivable if the play was funnier, but unfortunately, the only ones amused by the stream of poor gags are the multiple Conways themselves.