Animal crackers | 6 July 2017

The Vaults at Waterloo are gallantly trying to pose as the party spot for hipsters in the world’s coolest city. Brickwork alone may frustrate this goal. The venue is half-buried in a warren of arches beneath the western approaches to the terminus. The foyer is scruffy, poorly lit, and its dank air is scented with mildewed plaster and decaying concrete. It stinks, to be blunt, of tuberculosis. The auditorium features balding velvet pews salvaged from a condemned Odeon. Each seat receives its burden with a groan of reluctance. Every few minutes a train passing overhead rattles out a tom-tom beat.

This is the unpromising location for King Kong (A Comedy), which turns the 1933 horror flick into a satirical cartoon. The tone is brash and larky but the show sticks closely to the original storyline. A mad zoologist exhibits a giant gorilla in New York but the beast escapes and is killed by militant philistines in deadly aeroplanes.