“Butt-head-ressed by a pedantic depth of knowledge of and nerdish insight into the immortally classic original material.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Nae Bad)

Blockbuster (yet cult) movie franchise PLUS double Olivier Award-nominated direction PLUS writing and performance by a Reduced Shakespeare Company alumn EQUALS theatre so sensational it might have been routed through a flux capacitor. “Tell me, Future Boy, who’s President of the United States in 1985?” There’s a charm and an innocence to the movies, none of which is generated by one of the greatest movie villains of all time, the bozo bully Biff Tannen – the possibly probably love child of Shooter McGavin and Dr Evil.

Here are elements of the trilogy mixed, mashed, and lovingly upcycled into a homage worthy of the great Thomas F. Wilson himself. The stories are told from Biff’s perplexed and (rather unpolysyllabic) perspective. As all of the parts, Joseph Maudsley, hits all the notes, from Marty McFly on C6 (≈ 1046.5 Hz) down to the irascible Mr. Strickland on C2 (≈ 65.4 Hz). It’s like Maudsley’s playing an 80s electric keytar – which he is at one point. There’s prop gags, word play, surrealist riffs and improv, plus some properly totes hilar audience interaction, all butt-head-ressed by a pedantic depth of knowledge of and nerdish insight into the immortally classic original material.

Biff in the movies is a rather two-dimensional character – more Gilray than Hogarth. The genius of Maudsley’s approach is to add on existential dimensions that have you feeling pangs of sympathy for Hill Valley’s gobbiest gobshite like he’s sitting in his tent the night before Bosworth Field feeling sorry for himself.

I properly love Piccolo Tent at Assembly George Square Gardens, but it’s not quite the perfect stage for this staggeringly affectionate tribute. There’s one prop gag which is impossible to see from the back, which is a shame because it’s one of the funniest. Maudsley fills the space like he’s filling a 1946 Ford Super DeLuxe with manure. The comedy piles on and on, for the first and only time this Fringe, I am wishing the running time was longer.

Come for the nostalgia. Stay for the freshness. Put your custom-made red quilted puffer vests on and go see this!

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