EDINBURGH 2023: Review: BENJAMIN ALBOROUGH: ABSOLUTE MONOPOLY, Assembly George Square, The Crate

What do you get when you cross a pint of semi-skilled milk, a slightly terrifying game host, and a makeshift shoebox jail? You get Benjamin Alborough: Absolute Monopoly.

From the second he ran on stage, I was impressed with the amount of energy Alborough had and was slightly fearful of his absolutely feral energy, throwing himself into some bizarre dances and talking a mile a minute. The show has an interesting concept - Alborough believes that he has created a version of the board game Monopoly that will only take an hour and will cause no fighting, unlike the classic version of Monopoly which takes ages to play and has torn families apart.

The basic structure of Absolute Monopoly is simple. Two audience members volunteer to compete against one another, becoming the two players of the game. Some seated audience members are given beanies with the names of properties on them, making the audience the actual game board. The audience members with beanies on pass around the tokens chosen by the players until Alborough tells them to stop, having them “land” on a property. After each turn, Alborough pulls a chance card that can be anything from letting audience members make up a rule to having the two players do silly challenges to win more money.  

Unfortunately, the two audience members who were the players at the show I saw had varying levels of interest in the game, with one being a lot more into it than the other one. The two players had friend groups with them who became players in their own right, with one group causing so much chaos that someone had to be jailed with a shoebox over their face for nearly the entire game.

There were many times when I found myself making eye contact with the audience member next to me and shrugging, sharing in a mutual confusion about what was happening. Alborough did his best to keep the game going, but there were many moments when something strange would occur that would completely derail the game. I truly admire Alborough for his passion for the show, which included chugging a pint of milk, nearly making one of the players throw up due to her dislike of the drink. It felt like the audience was rooting for everyone to lose and the game had an incredibly anti-climatic ending, which Alborough did his best to overcome with another jingle. 

Ultimately, while I wanted to love Benjamin Alborough: Absolute Monopoly, the lack of control over the audience led to a disappointing show. It has the potential to be a fantastic show, especially with Alborough’s insane game-host energy, but audience control needs to be established from the beginning in order to keep things going. 

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