By Ailsa Marshall, Fourth Year Spanish and History of Art
Carlos Sandin returned to the city of his alma mater with his gleefully unhinged one-man show. A cocktail of slapstick, satire, and suave absurdity, shaken and stirred.
The show opened not with a dramatic entrance, but with the voice of Sandin from behind the curtain offering running commentary on the audience as they entered, before issuing a trigger warning for full frontal nudity. Moments later, Sandin appeared on stage in a state of nature, giving new meaning to “physical theatre”.
I, for one, was seated beside his secondary school biology teacher who presumably now knows more than necessary about his former student’s anatomy.
In a transformation that would leave Darwin lost for words, Sandin evolves from naked Neanderthal to James Bond, donning a tux and arming himself not with a Walther PPK, but a clarinet. After being used in a slightly sharp performance of the James Bond Theme, said clarinet spent much of the performance being cradled by a woman in the front row, only to return to stage for a rendition of The Last Post, played at the funeral of a toy shark.
Throughout the show, chaos reigned supreme. A recreation of the iconic Bond opening credits involved a suspiciously high volume of white frisbees. A car chase scene, featuring an ensemble of Sandin playing Bond, villain, skier, and swimmer, had the audience in stitches. At one point, someone was dispatched to the bar to fetch ice for Bond’s martini.
Method acting, meet crowd-sourced bartending.
Narratively, it was less Fleming, more fever dream? But the entire show was stitched together with sharp comedic call-backs that made the madness feel intentional. One particularly delightful through-line involved a tube of lipstick fulfilling dual function as Blofeld’s scar and Pussy Galore’s pout, each transformation marked by a swift wipe and a switch in accent. Pussy Galore was rebranded as “Butt”. Naturally.
Audience interaction was handled with flair and spontaneity. Sandin clearly thrives on the energy in the room, and the fourth wall wasn’t so much broken as gleefully obliterated. Props were handed out like party favours; roles delegated on the spot. Technically, the production teetered on the edge of shambolic, whether by design or delightful accident, it was hard to say. The lighting and sound seemingly developed minds of their own. But if things went wrong, Sandin played them off with such improvisational coolness that they became jokes in their own right.
In the closing gambit, somewhat disappointingly predictably, Sandin invited down an audience member to “pull his finger” (of course). But, if the final gag felt like it missed its mark, it hardly mattered. This was theatre in its most ridiculous, joyful form: part cabaret, part clowning, and all charisma. It might not have a plot EON would approve of but it had enough laughs to earn its licence to kill (with comedy).
Final Verdict: Utterly daft, delightfully dauntless. Bond like you've never seen him before (unless you've seen him naked).
){kind=link}