The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas's well-known tale of betrayal, imprisonment and revenge, feels like the perfect choice to transform into a musical rock opera. Screeching guitars, falsetto wails and thumping drum beats all mix well with bloody retribution, sword fights and murders most foul.
Rather than having a show that runs for hours, this is more like the Cliffs Notes of the piece, beginning at the midpoint after Edmund Dantes has escaped his ordeal and is hell bent on the titular revenge. Although this might mean, for some, things get a little confusing, it’s hardly a deal-breaker, as there’s plenty of action and a lot of singing to fill out the runtime.
It’s more than a little unfortunate, then, that the mixing on the audio levels was so painfully bad, and at times all over the place during the performance. Tech is difficult during the Fringe, and the acoustics of the often improvised stages being what they are, it’s only fair to overlook the odd mic-pop or rustle here and there. But when a show blasts the audience repeatedly with blaring feedback one minute and the next has cast singing away in seeming silence, that’s a problem.
In the case of Revenge, it happened a lot, and it’s a real shame because the singing was good and the music fun, if a little too loud, at times so loud that it drowned out the pre-recorded narration, which was busy giving out key information during this short-cutted, bullet-point version of the story.
It’s impossible to wholly recommend this with all the technical flaws present, but with these necessary and easily achievable technical fixes and tweaks, this could be an excellent show, and theoretically could have been twice as long without losing much of the fun.