Hold On To Your Butts

Hold On To Your Butts restages a dinosaur blockbuster in its entirety using two actors, a foley artist and a table of props. Everything the film does with a budget, this does with timing, and the joke is how close it manages to get.

The company works through the 1993 story more or less shot by shot: the park, the tour, the storm, the power failure, the kitchen. Two performers play every part between them, switching character mid-sentence, while a third stands to one side building the entire soundtrack live out of household objects. The audience is asked to supply the rest, and does.

The piece was devised by a small company that specialises in live parodies of well-known films, and it has been touring since the mid-2010s, picking up a following and a run of theatre bookings along the way. It is written for three people and very little else, which is part of why it travels.

The comedy comes from precision rather than mockery. Scenes land because they are recreated accurately, with the occasional dry aside, and the pleasure is in watching three people solve, in front of you, the problem of putting a stampede on a stage with a torch and a coat. Affection for the original is obvious throughout.

It suits audiences who know the film well enough to anticipate every beat. It works best live, because the entire show is a demonstration of what theatre can fake while you watch it being faked. Newcomers tend to work out the rules within the first minute, and that is part of the fun.