Review: DEAD HARD, COLAB Tower

If there was an award for the most art forms smooshed into one show, COLAB’s Dead Hard could be a winner. This blend of adult panto, comedy, immersive and drag is a satisfying mess that somehow (just) works.

The company have moved on from their COLAB Tavern venue in Elephant & Castle’s disused King WIlliam IV pub and are now sited in COLAB Tower, the first fully DDA-compliant immersive venue in London. It’s in an impressively central spot near to some of the capital’s temples of high art, the kind of area where you could easily bump into some luvvies opining about the Globe’s latest attempt to make Shakespeare relevant to the masses or overhear pensive pseuds earnestly discussing an exhibition that they had just seen at Tate Modern. 

Bertie Watkins’ Dead Hard, though, is very much not high art - and neither does it aspire to be. His parody of everyone’s second favourite Christmas movie* starts off with a grand office party. While some of us are taken off to join the heist crew, the rest of the audience grab a drink in the bar, form a Conga line and dance around to 80s tunes or play saucy games, one of which features an improbably large sex toy.

This corporate shindig is kept motoring along by CEO Joe “Shoulderpads” Capitalism (The Bitten Peach’s Jacqui Bardelang) who throws serious energy into making sure everyone who is not off playing a criminal feels included. Before long, evil mastermind Hands Grubby (Toby Osmond) and his gang arrive to kidnap us. A short scene plays out then we (all now playing hostages) are brought up in a lift to the fifth floor of “Nakablowme Towers”.

Once up there, the audience populate the seating around a traverse stage to watch what is a well-acted but unmemorable panto. Barefoot and in the trademark once-white vest stained with grey and red marks, John McClean (Alex Dowding) attempts to rescue ex-wife Hollie McNotClean (Calum Robshaw) from the sequin-festooned Grubby and his band of gun-toting Germans.There’s a cute queer twist on the original ending and some cheeky gags (Grubby quips “I can’t see shooting a CEO will get much public support” before doing just that) but a script that starts off progressive and self-aware ends up being gnawingly bad, even for a panto.

Die Hard is a rich dramatic vein to mine - Richard Marsh’s Yippie Ki Yay is a prime example of how to turn the iconic action movie into something quite exquisite - and Watkins lovingly mocks the film's macho culture and ridiculous accents. He attempts to jazz things up with some audience games, phrases from Ru Paul’s Drag Race and silly stunts like a Benny Hill-style chase around the floor to “Yakety Sax” but this show is a largely static affair once we leave the party behind. COLAB’s previous efforts at the Tavern - Crooks 1926 set in the Cockney Underworld and the cowboy-themed The West - allowed audiences to move around the venue and explore different story strands but, in Dead Hard, there’s disappointingly little of their signature art form.

Dead Hard continues at COLAB Tower until 12 January 2025

Photo credit: Alex Walton

* After The Muppets’ Christmas Carol, obviously.

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