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Pop quiz, hot shot. You notice the Speed Bus in the Pleasure Garden with long queues and signs for sold out shows. What do you do? What do you do?? You NEED to get on that bus.
Speed The Movie, The Play is an action-packed, highly immersive, unapologetically cheesy, exhilarating 60 minutes of pure comedy gold. It is very closely based on the iconic 1994 thriller, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.
But how does one stage a play on a bus, you may ask?
The answer is surprisingly simple.
With a ton of creativity, ingenuity and tongue-in-cheek “special effects”. Expect inflatable palm trees moving outside the bus windows (simulating driving), projector screens for extra graphics, flashing lights and loud bangs, water spraying and even bus shaking for real 4D flavour.
But what makes it truly an immersive experience is the incorporation of audience members into the play (as Sandra, who ends up driving the bus, for example) and making us deliver lines.
And this is what Act React does best.
Based in Brisbane, they specialise in pop culture-inspired shows – with past offerings including Titanic and Die Hard. Not only have they brought their act to festivals all over Australia, they made their debut at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019, before Covid forced them to take a break.
This reviewer is so happy that these legends are back, with a vengeance (Die Hard reference in case you didn’t get it.)
They do a highly impressive job of squeezing a nearly two hour movie into a highly entertaining sixty minutes while in an unconventional setting.
Not only that, these clever ducks also manage to pepper the script with pop culture references. Poking fun at Keanu’s filmography aside, they even manage to incorporate West Australian references – hello extremely conveniently-named Perth Wildcats vs Arizona Wildcats swap.
Hilariously funny if you’ve watched the movie, hilariously funny if you HAVEN’T watched the movie, and possibly, dare I say it, BETTER than the movie.
A resounding and enthusiastic 5 stars.