Have you ever wondered what it would be like if George Washington had been a sexual plaything of George III? Or if Marilyn Monroe had furtively courted Lee Harvey Oswald just hours prior to the JFK's assassination? Strange Bedfellows ruminates on fatuous relationships between figures from American history, using this self-consciously sacrilegious device to explore the vagaries of the American idea. The former example exposes the hypocrisies of the slave-owning founding father, and a speculated fling between John P Morgan and infamous murderess Lizzie Borden highlights the viciousness of American capitalism.
While not necessarily an unworthy model for such an exploration, this production suffers in its execution – particularly alongside thematically similar performances at this years Fringe. The first serious downfall lies in the fact that the material is treated with a facetiousness that undermines the seriousness of the message. Bawdy parlour humour morphs awkwardly into flighty political oratory on more than a few occasions, and at least three of the characters could easily have been played by Rik Mayall. The final ten minutes in particular descends into a truly dreadful Benny Hill farce that leaves audience members clearly wishing they hadn't bothered. A plethora of scarcely believable American dialects compound this problem.
Quite literally set against the written backdrop of the constitution, Stuart Spencer's Strange Bedfellows positions itself as judge and jury over some of America's most celebrated historical figures. A flippant tone and a truly dreadful final act means that this is a production best avoided.
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