Expösed – a titan of fashion’s personal standing is seen to flag (Baby Lamb Productions at Accidental Theatre until Saturday 7 February and then London)

Some of the freshest theatre comes from companies formed from young actors who’ve trained together and graduated from drama courses and colleges. It can be raw and rough around the edges, but it puts training into practice and is full of an urgency to create.

Founded by alumni from The Oxford School of Drama, Baby Lamb Productions has brought Expösed, its comedic take on The Emperor’s New Clothes to Belfast this weekend.

Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale is a well-known story about vanity trumping common sense and pride coming before well sign-posted humiliation. Baby Lamb whisks the audience’s imagination over the Berlin Fashion Week where Ze Emperor’s latest collection has bombed. New thinking is required to rescue the reputation of his underwhelming brand, and more importantly, boost his flagging personal standing. Out of the ‘ideas stream’ jumps a collaboration with the creators of Nücloth.

Jacob Baird’s delusional Emperor (whose private philosophy is based on his fondness for The Lion King) is clad in white from top to tie, mimicking the blank canvas of his mind. His court includes the uber-cool Johan (a very believable Nicholas Alexander) who turns to contemporary dance when words fail him, and commercially savvy Yanik (Ashok Gupta dressed in Steve Jobs’ uniform). Nisha Emich plays the competent, straight-talking but totally overlooked aide Maureen with great empathy. Two ‘French’ designers offer an exclusive deal to show off their cutting-edge fabric: confident snake oil saleswoman Bree (Hannah McLeod who also directs the show) and her bumbling sidekick Oche (Kiera Murray).

The original five-minute fairy tale is satisfyingly stretched out to create a 70 minute long show with lots of visual humour, clever dialogue, slow motion sequences, puns, carefully placed sound effects, a pumping and very cheesy soundtrack, and very knowing acknowledgements of the doubling of parts across the cast of six. The ensemble mostly makes sense of the mélange of comedy styles and techniques thrown at the elongated story. The mentions of fast fashion and body positivity are mainly there for the story’s punchline, but hint at threads that could have been more fully woven into the fabric of the script.

Given that the Emperor cannot comprehend that his servant Alexa isn’t a robot, it’s no surprise that the voice of reason at his side, Maureen, is almost invisible to him. Jacob Baird’s natural Belfast accent makes the Emperor’s moment of honesty speaking truth to his own soul rather profound for the home audience. The quick costumes changes are effective, and the final crocheted outfit is certainly worth the wait.

Leaving aside very established companies like the amazing Bruiser, the Northern Ireland theatre scene doesn’t have many indigenous outfits in its pipeline like Baby Lamb with a talented ensemble of young performers creating new work that is primarily comedic in nature (and not solely focused on Norn Iron or Troubles stories). So it was a joy to sit down and enjoy the craic as the six versatile visiting performers took on ten roles and jumped from one skit to another with this witty show. It’s a great showcase for their talent, and long may their ingenuity and energy feed their ability to stage fun theatre.

You can catch the final performance of Expösed in Accidental Theatre on Saturday 7 February before their UK tour whisks them away to Lion & Unicorn Theatre in London later this month.

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