Acid’s Reign Review: Bright Spells, but a Forecast of Too Much
★★★
Drag and protest should go hand in hand. Make it a musical and, theoretically, the forecast should be glorious. Unfortunately, Acid’s Reign is a far more changeable affair, with genuinely bright spells repeatedly obscured by a narrative carrying far too much.
The musical follows drag queen Alex Acid’s accidental involvement in an Extinction Rebellion protest, subsequent incarceration and eventual creation of an environmentally conscious troupe of gender queer drag artists. From there, the story rapidly expands to include villains, rivalries and multiple competing plot strands. The problem is not simply that there is too much story, but that so little of it is given enough space to properly land.
Characters and conflicts arrive at considerable speed, often with the suggestion that they will become important, only for the musical to move on before they have been fully explored. Relationships remain sketched rather than developed, while potentially interesting dramatic tensions are repeatedly crowded out by the next narrative turn. The environmental politics suffer similarly. Climate activism provides a lively framework for the satire, but the show rarely pauses long enough to interrogate its ideas in much depth, leaving the message somewhat lost amid the camp spectacle surrounding it.
This structural problem becomes most apparent in the final stretch. After spending so much of its running time piling complication upon complication, Acid’s Reign never quite earns a proper conclusion. The ending arrives abruptly, leaving characters, conflicts and ideas hanging in the air rather than bringing them together. It feels less like a resolution than the point at which the story simply stops.
Thankfully, the musical outlook is considerably brighter. The songs are infectious, with the almost robotic refrain of “we’re making your climate hot again” becoming the day’s unavoidable earworm. The cast have uniformly excellent vocals and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the material. Scarlett Harlett brings real comic bite and theatrical energy to Dina Mite, embracing the character’s antagonism with relish. One of the funniest moments comes from a single cast member performing an absurdly committed piece of modern dance while pretending to be concrete, a gloriously ridiculous sequence that lands perfectly.
Victoria Scone leads proceedings as Alex Acid with considerable camp confidence, balancing broad comedy with flashes of genuine emotional depth. The frequent audience asides are occasionally overused and can interrupt the momentum of scenes, but Scone remains a charismatic and assured presence at the centre of the production.
That is ultimately what makes Acid’s Reign frustrating rather than unsuccessful. There is a very good musical somewhere inside it. The performers have charisma in abundance, the vocals are excellent and the score provides more than enough heat. What it lacks is the confidence to trust those strengths, repeatedly adding another plot point, character or idea when greater simplicity would allow the best material to breathe.
Acid’s Reign does not need more. It needs sharper editing, greater narrative focus and an ending that properly resolves what has come before. Clear away some of the narrative clouds and allow its formidable cast and score to do more of the work, and the forecast could yet improve considerably.
Forth at Pleasance Courtyard
Until 31st August (not 12th)
1545-1700
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