Sh!t Theatre review: Evita Too is the most fun you’ll have in the theatre this year
Sh!t Theatre’s latest completely ridiculous but utterly barmstorming show begins with a question. Would you rather hear a Wikipedia page recited as context for the performance, or watch founders Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit roller skate around the theatre naked?
You can guess how the show opens, and it’s classically barmy stuff from the trope that, through sheer talent, have become postergirls of the UK’s alternative theatre scene. But Sh!t Theatre shows have a cache that transcends the fringe: they put on shows that ‘ordinary’ West End theatregoers will book to see for fear of missing out on the conversation.
Part of the fun is that Sh!t Theatre shows are seemingly managed entirely by the duo alone. In Evita Too, they haul lighting units around, introduce themselves over the loud hailer before appearing and convince audience members to play extra parts. But while keeping everyone laughing for a full 90 minutes, they also create meaning.
Their seventh show is a feminist interpretation of the ‘Evita’ era of Argentinian politics. Evita Too celebrates the life of Isabel Perón, the President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976 who was one of the first female heads of state in the world. But no one has heard of her.
Through warmly entertaining and ramshackle dance skits, singing and audience-involved storytelling, Mothersole and Biscuit remind us, always hilariously, that men, with or without talent, nearly always prevail, as Andrew Lloyd Webber did in making another of President Juan Perón’s wives, Evita, famous. But not this time, world.
Evita Too by Sh!t Theatre plays until 15 October at the Soho Theatre