Behold, oh mortals, as I sing a song of heroes on a mighty quest. At the center is Abby Howells, she who is slight of frame and small of voice, to weave a tale of the grand heroine Glocknid, Dwarf Warrior. 

As a mortal may one day take leave of her body, so has our heroine Glocknid taken leave of the dwarven kingdom beneath the mountains to present her story.  Having read but one tome on stand-up and but one more on friendship, she tells a tale of heroes, friendship, orcs, epic battles with siblings, wizards, and a surprisingly philosophical dragon. 

(From this point on, I’m dropping the faux-epic tone, because it is startlingly hard.  Well done to Howells for nailing it.) 

From the moment we enter the theatre, Amand Gerbault-Gaylor’s pre-show music places us entirely and so specifically in the world we’ve entered.  Howell’s first appearance in Anna Stuart’s delightfully over-large and slightly tatty armour (with the best dwarf skulls in Wellington theatre) tells us exactly who this character is trying to be. 

The show exists in two parts: first Glocknid’s attempts at stand-up and comedy, and then her attempts at acting (lying, in the dwarven construct) and storytelling.  After a short (failed) attempt at human comedy, Glocknid then tells us the story of how she overcame a dragon and became a hero (kind of). 

Howell has chosen what might be the most difficult theatrical conceit to pull off ever. It is very, very hard to make a good show as done by a character who is bad at making shows.  It might be an impossible quest, and I kind of wish folk would just stop doing it. 

With Glocknid, the team clearly has enough talent to make a show that works really well, so just filter that show through the consciousness of someone with a totally different frame of reference.  It would work equally well, I think, to have Glocknid fail at human stand-up but co-opt theatre for some dwarf saga time. 

The show is clunky.  About two-thirds of the time the clumsiness works because Glocknid’s character is so delightfully awkward, but the other third of the time it feels like a cop-out for theatre makers who can’t figure out a better way to solve story problems or represent crazy-cool fantasy stuff onstage.  For example, an early gag where Howell /Glocknid has to jump /run /scuttle from place to place to play multiple characters in a scene wears thin after spoiling the pace in the first scene, but then it keeps happening for the rest of the show. 

In contrast, the staging of the dragon, who we never see except as a red light and voice over the speakers, is effective and imaginative, and the ‘less you see, the more you know’ light /dark encounter with the wizard works marvelously.  Darryn Woods makes some bold lighting choices, and they pay off big time. 

And Howells’ Glocknid is a really, really, really cool and interesting character.  I like the mash-up of epic fantasy tropes and OMG-bashful-girlyness that I never get to see play an important part in epic fantasy.  I mean, even Sansa Stark has to harden up to survive. 

The best-written and most natural humor in the show comes from the contrast between the stereotypical young woman’s vernacular and Glocknid’s attempts at creating a stereotypical heroic epic.  And I like seeing Howell playing with her typical casting (e.g. Beards, Beards, Beards) without rejecting what I find appealing about watching her onstage.

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