Review – Desperately Seeking The Exit

Ah Fringe! It throws up such wonderfully oddball offerings such as Peter Michael Marino, a lovely American and self-confessed angloholic (like an anglophile but addicted).

One day Marino was inspired to write a stage musical based on the film Desperately Seeking Susan. The film stared Madonna and Rosanna Arquette and was a hit in the 80s. He also decided to feature the songs of Blondie and Debbie Harry. Somehow he managed to get it produced, in London, and this show is all about that production, the miseries and torturous difficulties of the English language, the joy of contracts and the disaster that was the West End debut. Desperately Seeking the Exit is apparently a direct lift from a real review, ouch! Anyone with a search engine can find out that, fortunately for Marino, although it was initially critically mauled it was picked up, revived and resuscitated by G2 (a real person) in Tokyo during 2009 to great acclaim.

Desperately Seeking The Exit is witty, fun and gloriously self-deprecating. Marino is very self-assured, in spite of having a little trouble acclimatising to Adelaide heat, and a very entertaining performer. Well worth seeing.