Review: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 LIVE at National Theatre
So much theatre nowadays derives from other media, for better or worse. It can be fun to watch teacups dance and phantoms pilot gondolas, but all mermaids do not get creatively adapted equally. Fortunately Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Live depends on its hybrid nature: the fun of it comes from the fact that it's salad. Once a TV show that combined bad movies with snarky comedy, now at The National Theatre, it's still bad movies and comic takedowns of them, but also people, bots (er, puppets), songs, and sketches.
No Retreat, No Surrender a 1986 vehicle for Jean-Claude Van Damme before he could speak, makes every movie ever made on Poverty Row or direct to video look like Gone with the Wind. MST3K characters Crow T. Robot, Tom Servo, and Joel Robinson crack wise during the screening of the movie. Their riffing is the best thing that could ever have happened to this turkey. Explaining the premises of MST3K to anyone who's never seen it is like trying to. . . It's bigger on the inside.
But Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Live Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour (two performances remain on Saturday, October 19) brings back fond memories to those who've loved it on the tube for 30+ years and introduces shared memories to their children (many were in tow at Friday's show). Creator Joel Hodgson says he's retiring from the role of Robinson after this tour, so catch him now. Servo, and Gypsy, and Crow, like Tribbles, Daleks, the Joker, and the Minions are eternal.
http://thenationaldc.com/events/category/series/mystery-science-theater-3000/
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