Panga

Two cultural figures loom large over Panga, the new production from the Edinburgh ensemble Strange Town.

The creators are no doubt cursing Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane to the hilt. Panga has the unfortunate fate of sharing the same conceit as McFarlane’s new film, Ted. In both, a child's toy magically comes to life, becomes corrupted by the adult world, and ends up a hard-drinking, sailor-mouthed wreck.

Panga was conceived well before Ted hit the screens, but the timing has blunted writers Tim Primrose and Sam Siggs’ original idea. The play sadly exists in the film’s shadow.

The other figure that unexpectedly permeates the tale is poet Philip Larkin, or more specifically, his toads. For the grumpy poet these slimy pond-dwellers were the things in life that squat on us, slowly suffocating us.

The toy panda that Lucy loved as a child—Panga—quickly becomes a toad. He shifts from being a childlike harbinger of fun, to hunkering down on her life, secreting low-level toxins into her relationships. Panga represents her inability to deal with adulthood. She takes more joy in making a den with her toy than a home with her boyfriend, for example. Both Lucy and Panga slowly disintegrate in a pool of Tennents.

It's an uneven, overlong show. The shifts between grittiness and broad comedy sometimes jar, the attempted uplifting finale is not wholly earned. But with strong performances and several zingy one-liners, Panga is an entertaining insight into what might happen should Andy from Toy Story encounter Buzz Lightyear 20 years from now. Probably in a strip club. It certainly ain’t Disney.