Vikki Stone: Instrumental
Vikki Stone: Instrumental
by Joanna Orland
Musical comedian Vikki Stone has “blagged, stolen and borrowed” twenty musical instruments for her show Instrumental. The instruments become the score to her standup material which is often heartfelt and personal, and at other times falls a little flatter in this ambitious show.
Vikki is quirky and she knows it. She’s often been referred to as “Victoria Wood meets Tim Minchin” but it’s more like Zooey Deschanel meets Kate Nash. She even does a piece about musical cum faces which is both cute and crude.
The twenty instruments which Vikki plays live alongside backing tracks and loops is the soundtrack to her life as she shares stories of her past, predominantly of her father and his death. While touching at times, it does give an air of self-indulgence which can be somewhat trying. The show feels like more of a storytelling feat than a comedic one, but there is nothing wrong with that.
The most interesting aspect to Vikki’s show is her live musical scoring which makes the title “Instrumental” a very fitting choice. Her music is actually very good, and I don’t just mean for comedy’s sake, but I mean for music’s sake. I’d like to hear a serious album or proper score from Vikki as I found her humour and familial stories distracting when all I wanted to hear was a bit of keytar.
Overall, Instrumental is good storytelling alongside even better music. The laughs are somewhat hard to come by, but Vikki Stone is a funny and interesting personality nonetheless.
