REVIEW – Robocop vs The Terminator vs Gabriel Featherstone
Friday 22 May 2026 – The Actors Theatre, Brighton
There’s a phrase to describe something that is occasionally good, being like ‘the curate’s egg’, that is good in parts, and that feels like the fairest way to describe Scottish performer Gabriel Featherstone’s wildly ambitious, intermittently hilarious, occasionally exhausting Fringe offering.
Set in a dystopian underground bunker after a catastrophic nuclear war, the show begins with a strong comic premise: The audience and performer huddled together while civilisation collapses outside (well, The Actors Theatre in Brighton). It’s an intriguing conceit, rich with possibilities for satire, absurdism and low-budget sci-fi parody.
Featherstone has undeniable energy and commitment. The audience participation was often the strongest material of the night, particularly an impromptu quiz segment with an absurdly obvious answer that somehow spiralled into delightful nonsense, culminating in a jar of pickles for the winner (my lucky companion). Some of this may have been helped by the fact that parts of the audience appeared to know the performer personally, giving the room the loose familiarity of a late-night student revue.
A recurring joke about Edinburgh Fringe star ratings landed particularly well. Featherstone mused that even if he were considered ‘best in class, best in the world, best in the galaxy, best in a multidimensional time-space continuum’ (I paraphrase), he might still somehow only receive a *3.5-star review, a pleasingly self-aware nod to Fringe culture and its arbitrary hierarchies.
There were genuinely witty songs, and a bizarre interpretive battle between Robocop, The Terminator and Featherstone himself using handmade puppets crafted from washing up sponges, which had moments of comic invention, although by this point the original dystopian bunker narrative had largely dissolved. Unfortunately, my attention drifted a little too.
That’s ultimately the issue here. The show contains lots of ideas, some excellent, some underdeveloped, but lacked enough narrative coherence to fully sustain its running time. It feels less like a polished touring Fringe production and more like a promising sixth-form or student show still in development. What it needs is careful shaping and some ruthless external editing.
The show repeatedly drifts away from that core idea, veering instead into anecdotes, songs, audience interaction, interpretive fight scenes and an ongoing obsession with creating a fifth Shrek film. There’s also Pizza Box Jesus trope running throughout with cardboard props, which, admittedly, was extremely funny.
Still, there’s something undeniably likeable about Featherstone’s commitment to the bit. The DIY aesthetic, chaotic imagination and sheer volume of ideas give the performance charm, even when it loses focus.
And one question remains unanswered:
Why Jeff Goldblum?
*3.5 stars
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