It's the year 2113.
Planet Earth is in catastrophic decline. A genocidal interplanetary president has decided to exterminate Earth's massive underclass of unemployed and unhealthy people by sending them to Mars to be eaten by the red planet's cannibal female population. A pair of Martian princesses are prepared to be initiated into the rituals of man-eating, but will they devour or fall in love with jobless Scotsmen Jaxxon McGhee and Largs Lido, who have no idea that they have travelled to Mars to be on the menu?
Such is the brilliantly absurd premise of new musical Cannibal Women of Mars, which takes up the often off-the-wall summer slot in the programme of Glasgow's Tron Theatre. The show boasts songs by Mick Cooke of Belle And Sebastian, who also worked on the book with writers Gordon Davidson and Alan Wilkinson.
Who, I ask director Andy Arnold, is this somewhat bonkers musical aimed at? Belle And Sebastian fans? Rocky Horror Show fans? "I think it's for both," he replies. "Mick Cooke has written great songs. It also has a feeling of Forbidden Planet about it, and it's a very funny piece.
"It's part of what the Tron's about," he continues. "We do serious work – new plays, classic pieces and so on – but we also do the fairly vulgar at times. There's a place for that, I think. It's vulgar without being really tacky. It's not blue humour or Benny Hill – it's cleverer than that. It's almost a send-up of that whole genre."
In fact, Arnold says, Cooke's songs, combined with the sheer chutzpah of the narrative, might just turn the piece into a fan favourite. "Gordon Dougall, who's musical director alongside Sally Clay, knows a lot more about this sort of thing than me. He looked at Mick's songs and said, 'These are great. This could become a bit of a cult.' Originally I listened to them on an MP3, when it was just one person playing and singing them, and I liked them then. Now that we're working on them with the cast, they really do sound great."
The cast itself is something to sing about, Arnold believes. The show, which has six actors and four musicians on stage, should be safe in the hands of such accomplished performers as Gavin Mitchell, Mark Prendergast, Helen McAlpine and Darren Brownlie. "They're all perfect for it," says the director, "and they're all great singers as well."
Difficult though it is to be even semi-serious about Cannibal Women of Mars, I can't help but notice it is one of a number of current sci-fi dramas about a dying Earth. Two examples are Neill Blomkamp's new film, Elysium, and Grid Iron Theatre Company's show Leaving Planet Earth, which opens at the Edinburgh International Festival in August.
"Our show should be at the International Festival, shouldn't it?" Arnold asks, with a rhetorical smile. "It would change the whole image of it."
Cannibal Women of Mars is at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, July 5-20. For further information, visit www.tron.co.uk
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article