I will start this review by admitting I wasn’t really looking forward to this show as I am no fan of anything that can be billed as any form of animation. It was therefore with some trepidation that I made my way to the Underbelly. However I was completely entranced, charmed and blown away by the show and must admit I totally loved and was overwhelmed by it. Essentially a one man show created by Tim Watt it details a post apocalyptic world in which our erstwhile hero ,Alvin Sputnik, journeys into the great unknown of the deepest seas on a reconnaissance mission to save the world and its inhabitants.

It is a touching tale exquisitely handled but also a morality tale that takes the audience on an emotional journey. The set is sparse and minimal centring around a screen where the bulk of the action takes place. Watt makes much use of music as a narrative tool staring off with the glacial warmth of new electronica, moving onto him playing plaintive melancholy mandolin articulating despair at what is seemingly the end of the world. A track from Vangelis’ soundtrack for ‘ Bladerunner’ supplies a comforting warmth suggesting that a solution can be found and a disco segment featuring a hilarious ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’ routine  whilst the Phil Oakey/ Giorgio Moroder early synth classic ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ suggests the euphoria on discovery of a solution. Somewhere, along the way, during this production a smile unknowingly spread across my face and didn’t leave it until close to the end. To reveal too much would spoil the experience so let’s just say the smile was never wider than when a bubble machine, which I now want, spewed innumerable bubbles into the air.

Watt has done an amazing job in putting this production together. It had me captivated from beginning to end and is somehow simultaneously mind numbingly simple but somehow also deeply complex. I predict that word of mouth will help propel this show into being one of the runaway hits of this years Fringe. Alvin Sputnik may be about to go into orbit and possibly even the stratosphere.

by David Marren