REVIEW | BATSU! Underbelly Boulevard London

Reviews

19 Nov

Written by Penny

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review. We did review this production during its run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, read it here.

Batsu is the Japanese word for “punishment” – it’s a popular feature of Japanese stage comedy and variety shows. This show, newly arrived in London after a successful late night run at the Edinburgh Fringe, sees four “warriors” take on a variety of comedy improv challenges, with the losers receiving a range of creative, and sometimes painful, punishments – gleefully administered by cast members with the most violent coming from a petite lady with a brilliantly sadistic glint in her eye.

From the moment you enter the auditorium, chaos ensues. Members of the company are everywhere, whipping up the crowd into an excited frenzy. If you’ve opted to buy a Hachimaki Headband with your ticket, you’ll be visited by the sake shinob – handing out shots to help you get even more in the mood. The show starts with a short performance from an acrobat displaying insane skills with glow in the dark hula hoops. It goes down really well with the crowd who are all ready to party. But then, for some bizarre reason, there’s a break for people to go to the toilet or to the bar whilst the bravest amongst us sign up for audience participation. This means that the show itself was a little slow to get going, there was plenty of time to get the audience involved before the lights went down and the energy in the room dipped a little.

Luckily, our host for the evening Brian - a Japanese-American with flame red hair to match his costume – had huge energy and charisma and got the audience on his side immediately. He introduced our comedy warriors for the evening, two from the New York show (that has run for over 2,000 performances), one from Chicago (where the show opened in 2022), and one from London, where BATSU is enjoying its third performance! The crowd immediately gets behind the local warrior.

For the next 90 minutes, the warriors compete in all sorts of games, mostly using their quick-thinking comedy credentials to win applause and points in improv challenges that range from storytelling to rapping. For some of the games, the audience volunteers are brought up on the stage to play alongside the warriors – although when they are on the losing side, their punishment is more fun than fearsome. The rest of the audience has a chance to get involved as well, shouting out suggestions for the various games and, of course, joining in the chant of BATSU! BATSU! BATSU! when it’s punishment time!

The warriors all completely commit to the games and to their punishments – nothing is faked, they show us the marks left by paintball shots and giant rubber bands, and there’s a clearly audible thwack when they’re being hit over the head with a giant fan! They are all talented improv comedians, their winning contributions to the games are just as entertaining as the chaotic punishments. If a joke doesn’t land, it doesn’t really matter as the consequences are ridiculously funny.

BATSU is completely bonkers but in the best possible way. As it’s based around improv, the show will be different each night so to an extent it relies on great suggestions from the audience. But, with an excited audience ready to embrace the chaos, it’s an unforgettable night of entertainment. If this is what punishment looks like, sign me up!