And the prize for the most obscure joke ever in a play goes to The Wicker Woman. To understand one of the gags, you need not only to have seen the film The Wicker Man, you also need to know something about the making of the film. Otherwise, the reason why the woman re-enacting Britt Ekland's famous naked dance routine vanishes off set to be replaced by a fat bloke wiggling his arse will go completely over your head. (Britt used a body double.)
Luckily, an anal knowledge of the classic Brit horror that inspired the play isn't essential. Even if you think that Lord Summerisle is a brand of carpets, there are few moments in The Wicker Woman that won't have you laughing out loud. Part Monty Python, part Little Britain, part Rentaghost (some of the puns are so-bad-they're-good) and all theatre, the play wears its Edinburgh Fringe sensibilities with pride. Which it should. It was a huge hit at the Fringe last year for the writing/performing team Population: 3.
With a cast of three doubling, trebling and quadrupling up on roles, puppets are used to bolster the numbers, including and uncanny mini Christopher Lee. Also on offer is everything from a turd in the shape of Christ on the cross to a manic Freddie Mercury impression and a crepe paper recreation of the climactic conflagration.
Totally beserk, maniacally inventive, gloriously smutty and engagingly deranged, The Wicker Woman is a play for the people who liked Vic and Bob before the Beeb ruined them. Catch it in Brighton this may if you can. Otherwise, log on to population3.co.uk, and jam their message board with demands for the play to come to your area soon. (Dave Golder)
What's On (London), 14 January 2004 
Although the Soho Theatre is usually the place to catch the best of the Edinburgh Fringe, this year the enterprising little Jermyn Street Theatre has jumped the gun with a double-bill of comedy plays that both enjoyed sell-out runs on the Fringe. On the face of it David Benson's one-man show Star Struck and The Wicker Woman, devised and performed by a trio known as Population: 3, come from completely different ends of the comedy spectrum. Benson harks back to glitzy old showbiz days when stars were untouchable icons, remembered mostly from his hero-worshipping childhood. The young funsters of Population: 3, who inhabit a loony, shambolic, low-budget world, somewhere in the direction of Little Britain meets The National Theatre of Brent, are surely rising comedy stars of the future. Seen together, however, both productions create a unique evening out, with the conversational Benson coming across as completely urbane and sane compared to the barking mad acting of Lucy Montgomery, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and James Bachman...
By a quirk of luck, Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward are not on Benson's party list, but the memory of both of them starring in the cult 1970s horror movie The Wicker Man permeates The Wicker Woman, Population: 3's grotesque burlesque of the film set on a Scottish island where the wind won't blow the wind farm and the terror of ritual sacrifice is in the air. Lucy Montgomery is Chastity Howie, a policewoman who is up for a weekend of birdwatching with her butch boyfriend Bard, played by cross-dressing actress Barunka O'Shaughnessy. By the end of this mad-cap spoof involving strippers, sinister miniature puppets, a sacred turd resembling Jesus on the Cross, and a loony landlord (James Bachman), the entire island of villagers are up in flames. Inventively directed by David Sant, the actors revel in rough acting, daft accents, skimpy sets, crazy props and off-beat jokes. And they keep hitting you with the unexpected, like the giant wicker figure that appears from nowhere and a menacing set of bouncing puppet local villagers - all bent on paganism. It's relentless and funny, and there's nothing like it this side of Hadrian's Wall. (Roger Foss)
The Wicker Woman is more than happy to revel in the homespun talents of its cast... A riotous spoof of the Christopher Lee film, this unashamedly silly jaunt from James Bachman, Lucy Montgomery and Barunka O'Shaughnessy grabs its gags where it can, some of which flounder, but with David Sant's light, unpretentious comic direction, The Wicker Woman charms the fake moustache from its audience from the first. Ultimately this rough and ready comedy also has little to say, but thankfully you'll be laughing too hard to notice. (Lucy Powell)
The Sunday Telegraph, 11 January 2004
The Jermyn Street Theatre is also providing a temporary home for The Wicker Woman. Written and presented by Lucy Montgomery and Barunka O'Shaughnessy (who are attractive and funny) and James Bachman (who is flabby-faced and even funnier), this is a parody of the old Christopher Lee film about ritual sacrifice, with all kinds of loosely related high and low jinks thrown in. The attractions include a becalmed wind farm, a demented innkeeper, a lust-crazed policeman and a series of jokes about a Wankel rotary engine. I could have done without some of the more scatalogical moments, but apart from that I laughed a lot: this is a trio with a future. (John Gross)
The Independent on Sunday, 11 January 2004
What doesn't bear repeating is a viewing of The Wicker Woman, also directed by Sant. I first caught the show in Edinburgh last year and laughed my head off. It's a gloriously silly spoof of the scariest of scary movies, The Wicker Man. The very likeable Lucy Montgomery, James Bachman and Barunka O'Shaughnessy play a whole gallery of absurd characters, all with a deadpan twinkle in their eyes. Perfect for a light-hearted night out, but it doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny. (Madeleine North)
Metro (London Edition), 8 January
2004
In Population 3's spoof of the 1973 film The Wicker Man, the talented trio of James Bachman, Lucy Montgomery and Barunka O'Shaughnessy use The Wicker Woman as an excuse for some endearingly daft comic business in which sexy-but-stupid copper Chastity Howie loses her boyfriend, her clothes and more on a windswept isle in Scotchland. While they preserve the illusion of a shambles, the cast keep things admirably tight - using dolls, models and sublime slapstick to tell their gag-happy story. A lot of fun. (Dominic Maxwell)
I've never understood why The Wicker Man, in which a mad-eyed Christopher Lee ritually sacrificed Edward Woodward on a remote Scottish island, has become a cult movie. On the evidence of their good-natured parody at Jermyn Street, nor have the trio of young actors who go by the name of Population 3. They're larky, jaunty and so funny that they could make you laugh at an auto-da-fé. Actually, Lucy Montgomery's Chastity Howie, the policewoman who has come north for an oddly virginal weekend with a beefcake boyfriend called Brad, does end up amid fake flames inside a DIY woman that looks less wicker than garden-shed sacking. Before that we get strange disappearances, weird yokels with Bristol accents (they're puzzled by this, too), bouncing puppets, dodgy props, lunatic changes of costume and vaguely ominous remarks ('There will be no barn dance this year because of the tremendous number of rapes after the last one'). And all in the interests of magically raising a breeze strong enough to power the local windfarm. I laughed often at Montgomery and her fellow-actors, James Bachman and Barunka O'Shaughnessy. (Benedict Nightingale)
Not that the second part of the double bill, The Wicker Woman, has anything to say either, but then it has absolutely no pretence about it: this is a very stupid show, and proud of it. The three-strong team of James Bachman, Lucy Montgomery and Barunka O'Shaughnessy set out to recreate the cult Seventies human-sacrifice horror flick The Wicker Man with a budget of about £12.50. But what they lack in cash, they make up for in ingenuity, wit and plain old high spirits. Switching breezily between a village full of characters - and even providing the props and sound effects themselves - the trio bring a vibrant pace and unselfconsciously silly humour to the loose parody. Though the production seems shambolic, it soon becomes clear that a huge amount of comic invention has gone into every daft moment. Plus it's all performed with a precision timing and finely-judged impact that belies the ease with which the jokes emerge. Admittedly, some of the gags will go over your head if you didn't see the original, and the usual cracking pace flags a couple of times - noticeable mainly because the rest of the show is so full of brio - but nothing that really detracts from the uncomplicated fun on offer. It really is worth sacrificing an hour of your time to see this riotous slice of stupidity. (Steve Bennett)
Evening Standard, 5 January 2004
Star Struck is half of a bizarre double bill with The Wicker Woman, also directed by Sant. This distaff send-up condenses movie-chiller The Wicker Man and milks it for full panto potential. Seasoned threesome James Bachman, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Lucy Montgomery combine cringeworthy gags with wonderfully cheap special effects and breathless costume changes. This mocky horror show is infinitely superior to the trio's previous sub-Ernie Wise spoof, Gladiatrix. Chunky Alan Davies-lookalike Bachman excels at shameless smirking, Montgomery plays it saucy as the female cop, while O'Shaughnessy does a mean local yokel. A brainless, blazing cult in the making. (Bruce Dessau)
My pick of the festival is The Wicker Woman. I'd yawned and fidgeted my way through dozens of wonky psychodramas and misfiring satires, and when I finally found this witty and endlessly inventive comedy I felt I was drawing the very breath of life. The show parodies Seventies cult classic, The Wicker Man, a film which itself re-tells the oldest fable in any tongue: the propitiation of the gods by human sacrifice. But there's nothing ponderous or self-referential here. It's effervescent ingenuity is enhanced by the charm of the players: Lucy Montgomery, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and James Bachman. These three writer-performers have as much charisma and assurance as any comedians you will ever see. Still in their twenties they have mastered the full repertoire of comic theatre: dialogue, narrative, mask, song, puppeteering, dance paroddies, dream sequences, the lot. In its atmosphere and execution the show reminded me of Vic and Bob but there is more here than their thrusts of forced wackiness; you get a satisfying plot elaborated by a unifying intelligence. The jokes are simple, daft, self-knowing and self-mocking. In one sequence a character is calling for her lost lover in a gorge. Her cries come back to her in the form of an Echo (i.e. an actor off-stage repeating her lines). As she becomes more distressed her shouts grow indistinct and the Echo asks, 'Could you say that again?' It's the kind of throwaway idea that would have pleased Tommy Cooper. The gags come thick and fast and the strike-rate is impressive. No, perfect. Nothing fails. As I sat there amid gales of laughter a phrase started repeating itself to me. West End hit. West End hit. And why not? This would satisfy everyone: the stand-up crowd, serious theatre fans, even families of kids, grannies and in-laws, because although this feels perfectly contemporary it lacks the coarseness that sours much live comedy. A treasure. (Lloyd Evans)
A show which is a parody of something else, such as a cult movie, often fails because it relies so heavily on the audience knowing the original that those who don’t are left out in the cold. Thankfully, this show offers so much stand-alone amusement that any in-jokes about The Wicker Man seem like unexpected bonuses. The play follows the general plotline, although in this case the virtuous young policeman is a woman, Sergeant Chastity Howie, who departs for a weekend of birdwatching with her studly boyfriend Brad. Little does she know that the island she visits has a wind farm, but no wind. One of the residents, watching The Wicker Man on TV, realises that a virgin sacrifice might just make the gods smile upon them. The three-strong cast explode with vivacity, swapping eight roles among them and playing every one to the hilt. This includes occasional bursts of song and a lot of sound effects. The props are not only inventive, such as the lab table that transforms into a pub counter, but beautiful. The show’s producers could make a fortune by selling do-it-yourself models of the sea plane and giving Jellycat the right to produce stuffed animals designed from the masked villagers. And yes, they burn a wicker woman right there on the stage. (Sort of. It's awfully clever how they do it.) This alone is entertaining enough to make you rush out to rent the movie – and then come back and watch the show a second time. (Tracy S Rosenberg)
This spoof reworking of the infamous cult film The Wicker Man, is going to set the Festival on fire. Based around the sacrificial burning of a virgin policewoman so that wind will return to a wind farm on a small isle in Scotchland, this ingenious show is not only scorchingly funny but also blisteringly brilliant. It has everything; priceless props, performing puppets, a scintillating striptease and they even do their own sound effects. The three actors are all magnificent and extremely talented performers and sparks of comedy genius flicker all the way through the show. This is a red-hot production with a flaming good cast, script and set. So go throw yourself on the pyre that is The Wicker Woman; it's wicked! (Claire Whitefield)
The flyer reassuringly states "no knowledge of the original film is required''. It's certainly true that you need never have seen - or even heard of - cult movie The Wicker Man to find Population:3's antics utterly hilarious. Their ability to be cheerfully ramshackle never palls because of the clever way that mishaps and misunderstandings are integrated into the comedy. There's always another inspired detail - an inappropriate accent, a daft bit of business or costuming - that extends a running gag into a marathon racer. That said, if you do know The Wicker Man, and all that stuff about Britt Ekland's body double, then you may be helpless to the point of crying with laughter. (Mary Brennan)
Metro (Edinburgh Edition), 12 August
2003
Last year, Population 3 brought us Gladiatrix, a parody of the film Gladiator with no reverence for its subject matter, no production values and plenty of laughs. Here they reverse the gender of another popular, if po-faced film to bring us The Wicker Woman, which borrows ideas from the 1973 horror and sets up a series of silly comic riffs on them. It's juvenile stuff, but genuinely funny. Virgin policewoman Sgt Howie and her boyfriend Brad borrow the police seaplane for a trip to a Scottish island where Brad is kidnapped and Howie finds herself vying with Lord Summerisle and pub landlord's daughter Willow for their lives. This synopsis hardly suggests the glorious dressing-up box shambles The Wicker Woman is - and that's no criticism. Population 3 take a conventional picture and scribble madly over it and the studied amateurism of their approach keeps the laughs coming thick and fast. The playing is pitch perfect, with James Bachman (Lord Summerisle) in particular becoming an accomplished comic performer. So forget the movie; this Wicker Woman is well worth getting into. (Eddie Harrison)
Anyone who holds the reputation of classic Brit horror flick The Wicker Man a little too close to their heart is advised to tread with caution around this jokey semi-adaptation. Wicker novices, though, will bust a gut at such a fast-paced, inventive and sharply humorous show, in which PC Chastity Howie (she’s a virgin, you see) and her suspiciously feminine boyfriend, Brad, head to the 'Scotch' island of Pepperidge, where they fall prey to inbred (possibly) Cornish innkeepers and Jean-Michel Jarre obsessed wind farmers. The well considered set-pieces are so grand in scale – and the three vibrant young leads’ comic skills are so finely tuned – that any timing blips are easy to laugh off. And watch out for the ‘sexy’ striptease: truly more horrifying than anything in the original. (David Pollock)
Population:3's show is a fast-moving, 'anything for a laugh' romp that delivers almost as much fun as it hopes to and certainly enough for a satisfying hour. Doubling and redoubling roles, the cast of three tell a consciously silly story that is a variant on the cult horror movie The Wicker Man with, in this case, a woman PC kidnapped by Scottish islanders and sacrificed to propitiate the wind gods and save the local windmill farm. But the fun lies in the openly cheesy jokes and comic effects. All the characters, from the innocent copette to the local yokels, are cartoons and all sets, props and costumes comically inadequate or exaggerated. Sound effects and even musical bridges are all done by mouth. The cast member providing an echo effect can't catch what the caller says and has to fake it. One of the women puts on a fake moustache to play a man and the comment that she looks like Freddie Mercury triggers a string of impressions. Such silliness is infectious and while more would be better, few could complain that there is not enough. (Gerald Berkowitz)
This fantastically low-budget retelling of the cult 1973 movie is a riot of stupid gags, brilliant invention and hilariously off-kilter acting. The sets and props are wonderfully tacky, the script knowing yet silly, and the whole thing completely, and gloriously, over the top. For those who haven't seen the original, an explanation of its plot is conveniently shoehorned into this spoof. Essentially it's: stranger visiting remote Scottish island goes missing; police officer sent to investigate encounters spooky goings-on; villagers burn outsider in giant wicker figure as pagan sacrifice. It takes just three people - and a lot of talent - to portray the cast of dozens; from the perky, bubblegummy policewoman Chastity to the overenthusiastic gingham-clad bumpkin Willow, via romantically smitten cops, giggling wind farm technicians, and even an entire mob of angry locals. Deft comic touches pervade the script like intolerance pervades the countryside, with running gags about the freakish man hands of gorgeous star Lucy Montgomery, some silly puppet theatre and plenty of lines mocking the ridiculousness of this entire, overambitious venture. Most often, though, the laughs come from the inventive solutions to staging such an epic tale for a few quid. Describing any would spoil their impact, but rest assured the team are duly resourceful - often to the extent that the mere introduction of a clever new prop is enough to elicit an appreciative round of applause. The relentless show's a little overstretched at an hour, and the post-ritual ending could do with being sharper, but otherwise this is great fun all the way, packed with inspired ideas and executed with impressive gusto and skill. (Steve Bennett)
Every year there is one show that grows almost purely through word of mouth, and right from the start, The Wicker Woman was one of the shows being discussed and recommended by everyone who saw it. More than once, we were privy to conversations in which people were urging others to pop along as one of the 'must see' shows, and so we succumbed to peer pressure. And we're very glad that we did. The Wicker Woman more than stands up to the hype that surrounds it, and the five star reviews currently being lavished upon it by, it seems, almost every reviewer in the city are thoroughly deserved. The main topic of conversation for anyone who has seen the show is the imaginative, frequent and flexible use of props, as the three performers take on between them eight seperate roles as they tell the story, based on the Wicker Man film. Although neither of us have seen the film ourselves, we are reliabily informed by a big fan of the film that it is a wonderful tongue in cheek homage to The Wicker Man. However, it is in no way essential to have seen the film yourself, as the story moves along at such a pace, packed full with jokes and asides that you can become fully immersed in the story yourself. All three performers are absolutely brilliant, taking each ridiculous role to the heights of farce, with over-acting that, in any other circumstances, would have audiences walking out of the theatre rather than rolling in the aisles. As it is, the whole piece works wonderfully well, and within the tightly paced show, there still seems room for the performers to improvise and enjoy themselves. If you are only visiting the Fringe for a couple of days, this is certainly one of the shows we would recommend you catch. (Sharon Cribbin & Susan Turnbull)
ParamountComedy.com, August 2003
The cult horror film The Wicker Man may not immediately spring to mind as a source of comedy, but it is. The Wicker Woman takes the original movie’s plot of islanders sacrificing a virgin from the mainland to the pagan gods to improve their Islands’ fortunes but gives it a consciously silly, Blue Peter-style make over. Playing eight characters between them, the three cast members – James Bachman, Lucy Montgomery and Barunka O’Shaughnessy – are all fine comedy actors. Juggling costume changes, set changes, and even breaking the fourth wall to interact with the audience, the cast utilise puppetry and home made special effects to great comic effect. It’s clear that the cast are having as much fun performing as the audience are watching, as they embrace the play’s brilliantly crap special effects and sound effects. Like The Simpsons, the laughs come so thick and fast, it doesn’t matter if you miss one as another is winging it’s way from the stage any second. They should be given their own Comedy Lab series now – they’re far superior to half the dross on TV. With so many levels to the play – songs, special effects, multiple characters and the film homage, it’s impossible not to laugh during this show. At the performance I was at, Keith from The Office was sitting in the row in front. Judging by his belly laughs throughout the show, he gives it the thumbs up too. Go see it – even Keith from The Office loved it. (MB)
EdinburghGuide.com, August
2003
Wickedly naive, this show is the best hangover cure of the Festival. After a slightly shaky start, where the jokes are a little too panto for the comedy connoisseurs of the Fringe, this production finds it feet flying over the sea to "Scotchland" in a polystyrene 'plane. The script is loosely based on the The Wicker Man, although the humour stands up on its own, especially if you are a child of the 70s. Population:3 rely on strong acting abilities which transcend the physical boundaries of the theatre to bring this spoof adaptation to life. And they manage to do it in a genuinely original way. The cast of three are directed with typical panache by David Sant from Peepolykus. Naive, yet surreally ingenious, they use their bodies freely to extract every ounce of humour from the script to the full, occasionally bursting into free falling impro. Describing the mean and moody male lead Brad as "a loner, a maverick - iron, like a lion in Zion." Give your inner child a treat and go to see this show. (Kim Oliver)
Population: 3 are James Bachman, Lucy Montgomery, and Barunka O'Shaughnessy - a comedy theatre trio that are performing their brand new Fringe show The Wicker Woman at the Pleasance most evenings at 6:00pm. I went along to one of their previews this evening to check out their show. The show, directed by David Sant, was inspired by the Seventies cult film The Wicker Man. It is set on a remote island of 'Scotchland', where a beautiful young policewoman Sergeant Chastity Howie and her 'manly' boyfriend Brad get sucked deeper and deeper into the strange goings on in the isolated community. And as the locals get ever more desperate with their lot, it seems inevitable that things won't end well for our protagonist. From the outset, you could tell that the company's production budget wasn't exactly massive - but then again, I suppose that's pretty par for the course in the Fringe. Their numerous (and often innovative) hand-made props had a most endearing quality to them - as if the prospect that they might fall apart at any moment would only serve to enrich the show. But as is happens, it wouldn't have mattered if a prop had failed, or indeed if the whole set had come crashing down around their ears, as the winning performances of this young group eclipsed their surroundings. The excellent script seemed to play to the differing strengths of each character. James Bachman in particular seems to have found his niche after some merely adequate Fringe performances in previous years. Playing against two other strong characters frees him from the need to deliver punch lines, and instead affords him the opportunity to enjoy the subtleties of non-verbal communication with the audience. Lucy Montgomery, in comparison, engages the audience in a totally different way, carrying them along with heart-wrenching monologues and delicate asides. Binding the three performers together into a group falls to Barunka O'Shaughnessy, master of many diverse characters. Her winning smile and assured performance provide perfect a filling for the Population: 3 sandwich. (Richard Bloomfield)
EdFringe.com audience reviews, August
2003
(Average audience star rating 4.18)
'Comedy can come from many things. The script, the timing, ad-libs,
props and all sorts. This group not only has every component in place
but it all works in tune with some other magical essence that makes
this show even better than the sum of its parts. Of the 40 shows I've
seen so far, this is the best of the Fest. Absolute perfection.'
(Phill Rogers, Jersey)
'I left this show with a big grin on my face. Plenty of laughs, fantastic
use of the props and the comic timing the cast was spot on... Go see.'
(Caroline Hall, Scotland)
'Truly excellent... A great adaptation for the stage and loved the
21st century wind-farm twist.'
(Gareth, UK)
'Had me in stitches. The characters, the props, the script, the timing
- everything worked. A very talented bunch - I hope they do well.'
(SM, Scotland)
'Must see. This could well be one of the ones talked about into the
winter... Should be a final week sell out.'
(Neill Bell, Scotland)
'Went to see this after reading comments on the message board. And
am very, VERY glad I did. Really great show. Very funny and the cast
were amazing.'
(Amanda Jones, UK)
'A truly memorable performance by all. The props and interaction with
the audience worked very effectively to make this a show to see more
than once.'
(Mag, England)