I Think, You Stink and Other Sad Tales...

The cast of I Think, You Stink begin by hypnotizing the audience to mentally prepare us for the morbid goings-on we are about to witness. “Welcome to the hypnozone” they sing, while producing a variety of trance-inducing items – a bubble machine, a fake bird and cardboard cut-outs painted with black and white swirls. The stage is set for this macabre musical. A tribute to the low-budget B-movies made in the Golden Age of Hollywood, this show depicts a variety of gruesome tales under that great umbrella term – "the Black Comedy."

The Bedlam Theatre, a converted neo-gothic church is a fitting venue for such an event, creating that eerie atmosphere that is necessary when a show’s humour is based on frightening its audience. The tales themselves range from classic horror—two young girls kill a household of people (“This is the church and this is the steeple, this is the house where they killed all those people”)—to more modern tales of morbid depravity, like a Tesco chain store manager driven crazy by tins stacked the wrong way on the shelf. This is a clever strategy which gives a poignant undercurrent to proceedings, namely that I Think, You Stink, maintains that "horror" can take many forms and resists clear-cut categorisation.

While the cast are all good singers, the musical is let down by the songs themselves. The first rendition of ‘hypnozone’ is really very funny, introducing the play as an edgy and satirical dark comedy, but it goes downhill thereafter, leaving the audience a little disappointed. This is a brave effort, with some flashes of excellence, most of which are far too near the beginning for the audience to stay engaged until the end.