REVIEWED BY KIERA EDELSTEIN
EDITED BY AZMY
Sometime in the afternoon on some peaceful Friday, just hours before the AFL grand finale, I was studying in the Arts and Cultural Building at UniMelb when a fire alarm was set off. As I hurried down Porters Lane, blocking my ears against the unruly alarm, I tried to squeeze by two blaring fire trucks, a whole swarm of operators and managers in theatre blacks and what seemed to me eighteen apparitions straight from my childhood cartoons, appropriately clad in solid colour spandex. In the chaos of the moment, I couldn’t quite figure out what was happening, but it felt appropriate that I might be being rescued from this burning building by a horde of superpowered characters. Assuming it to be an-incredibly-loud-sound-induced phantasm, I tried to blink away the posse of technicolour-haired sprites and found them, to my shock, to be real people. In fact, what I had stumbled past was the cast and crew of Four Letter Word’s ‘Henchmen’ costuming up on the side of the road as they waited for access back into the building in time for their second performance at the Union Theatre.
They say you should never meet your heroes. Indeed, it was almost too much to witness this kooky bunch up close next to the Campus General store – fixing their hair and struggling into boiler suits. The delighting, almost shocking effect of seeing this cast on the side of the road, as if spilled out from a serial floppy, is a small insight into how vividly inspired the creative design was behind this original musical.
Set in an ambiguous comic-book metropolis, ‘Henchmen’ excavates the untold figures of super-stories, whose realities are even less explored than the Robins and Kid Flashes of the world – the supervillain sidekick. In this exploration, the show begins with a fantastic battle of good vs evil, posited as just another raid on the job for the minions of Supervillain extraordinaire, ‘The Backburner’ (Annabelle Goh). However, after a fatal accident entirely the result of her own self-absorbed superiority, this top-dog’s death leaves her evil lair unattended, save for a motley crew of left-behind lackeys. Thus, in the wake of the death of their boss, Scarlet (Grace Dywer), Patch (Kenneth Chai), Specks (Freyja Knutsen Craig), and Buffy (Isobel Whitehead) must try to keep the myth of the Backburner alive in order to maintain the status quo. In true scheming fashion, they do this by training up an unassuming intern (Hannah Campbell) to costume as their old reigning queen and continue with antics as usual, including terrorising the local Mayors (Hugo Cooper and Madeleine Phillips). Along the way, they are challenged by a series of heroes, namely Gooman (Prezley Lea) and the Wonder Bunch (made up of Dempsey Doyle, Ryan McInerney and Eden McLean).
As evidenced by this unending list of striking and quirky characters, it is clear that ‘Henchmen’ was underscored by a truly inspired creative vision. Belle White and Oscar Jenkin’s script is bright, innovative and strikingly charming. Their knowledge of the comic-book style is undeniable, conjuring each line of dialogue and each beat of action with a popping ‘ing’ verb and a thickly bolded exclamation mark. Riddled with puns, witty comebacks and a myriad of references – the very first dialogue between Patch and Scarlet seemed to pay homage to the philosophical banter from ‘Peanuts’, the quintessential comic– this writing played out as deeply considerate of audiences deeply emerged in the world of comic bookery, but also warming for the uninitiated. This sense of style carried over to the musical side of the production, with the huge orchestra score demonstrating an astounding familiarity with classic superhero soundtracking, inventing fresh and creative themes. ‘When it Comes to Supervillaining’ was a delightful, brassy number that has stayed in my head for days.
It was impossible to ignore the enormous amount of fun creating this world that White and Jenkin must have had – you don’t come up with characters like ‘The InvestiGator’ (Half-man, Half-alligator played by Michael Doran) without leaning into a deep sense of play. This work was extended by the playful configurations of transitions and scenework from co-director Alana Collins and assistant director Harper Tierney-Hunt.
As the scheme unfolds, group-leader Scarlet becomes increasingly apprehensive about the plan, and suspicious of the Intern who has gone a little too ‘method’ in their supervillain performance, growing from meek to power-hungry. The story entangled many threads and tropes in this classically brooding, too-hurt-to-love-anyone-else-let-alone-themselves portrayal of Scarlet. Dwyer embodied this range well, aptly shifting from wry to apprehensive, self-assured to desperate for a little recognition. Across the show she was stable in this role, sweetly stoic, if a little underused by the script. She shined most when on stage bantering with Chai as close friend and confidant, Patch. Chai was absolutely endearing in their performance, with a particularly great comedic sense. The pair’s chemistry was enchanting and a strength across the show, most acutely evidenced in the goosebump-worthy ballad on the beauty of friendship and self-confidence, ‘Right Now.’ Both had notably strong vocal presences, which together amplified the clever harmonies of Jenkin’s score.
As sidekicks to our central sidekicks, Whitehead and Knutsen Craig were my personal highlights of the show. Both seemed to feed off each other’s character play and accent work, calling for one to lean into the undeniable goofiness of the script. Many of their jokes were somewhat corny, but the performers embraced this aspect in all its charm, inviting complexity and comfort at once.
So too was Cambell’s performance as the intern impressive. Her character progression was the most tremendous and demanding out of the whole script, and she dealt with it deftly. She was notably expressive, especially in the background of other scenes or songs, and convincingly played the Intern’s turn to true evil beyond the convinced norms of the super-world. This raised an interesting contrast and playful critic of comic-book logic, which makes a clear distinction between what it means to be a classic ‘baddie’ and what is truly despicable.
Thus, championed by this effective and cohesive central crew, ‘Henchmen’ came off as an impressively well cast show – each actor able to at once lean into their tropes, for example, the nerdy techie or the dumb blond brawn, while simultaneously finding new and meaningful ways of exploring these familiar postures. The bursting creativity of this character creation is further evidenced by the two suspiciously named reporters ‘Clark’ (Ben Provan-Koch) and ‘Peter’ (Lockie Carmichael), whose quirky presence represented one more tongue-in-cheek superhero homage.
The nuance and detail here demonstrates how ‘Henchmen’ spoke to the quality of comic-bookery that makes it so enticing, not just the amusingly imaginative characters or the indulgent humour, but long hours dedicated to real art of storytelling. Zara Sadhai’s choreography was detailed, considerate of many moving parts and extraordinary in whole cast scenes. Charlene Yong’s set was sensational, with its luminous radioactive vats of acid and classic comic-book skyscrapers. Jamie Tran as props designer, in one of the more impressive visual effects I’ve seen on stage this year, managed to make fire powers real. Leanna Yong’s costumes were of equal delight, cohesively creating the world of the super-tastic ensemble.
However, certain things about the show felt unclarified. One of the many entangled plot lines followed the story of the local police officers, headed by headed by Commissioner Glass (Claire Steel), who tried to keep the peace in the city of superpeople. While Steel was enjoyable in this role, embracing the homage to Commissioner Gordon from the Batman comics with humour, logically it felt confusing as to how the police force fit in in the context of the super-villains and the heroes that they faced off with. Similarly, it felt unclear as to whether other vigilantes, such as Gooman or the InvestiGator, fit into the world. Similarly, while hinted at, Scarlet’s morose backstory was never fully realised. The show’s ending, in which Scarlet and Patch oust the intern and save their friends, felt unable to reach a satisfying conclusion as a result. Certain elements felt somewhat rushed or overly simplified, such as Buffy’s unexplained resurrection. This mystification was intensified by some patchy sound quality, which made it hard to hear the softer spoken and considered scenes at times. Of course, here, we land at a classic challenge of the Union Theatre, prompting a call for some better training from the University in this department.
However, these minor flaws were outweighed by the truly spectacular vision of joy and creativity that was this musical. Much as ‘Henchmen’ in plot pays attention to those overlooked, those muscling behind the scenes, it was clear that this show enlivened a doggedly loyal mass of creatives to put this show together. In return, the show itself made every effort to showcase these background workers. Each of the vast ensemble members was given a hefty load of featured character(s) to enliven and explore. Each prop and sound effect was lovingly designed and lavishly indulged by the performers. When the whole crew came on for company bows, it was the stage, even more so than the crowd, which was raucous with applause.
Everything about the design of ‘Henchmen’ felt like a labour of love – on the one hand, a stretching the boundaries of what can be put on stage, while on the other, a complete embrace of all things crafty – as seen by the distinctly homemade-ness of cardboard cut-out speech bubbles with the classic action words. This production inscribed and dedicated itself to the art of the musical – spectacle, glamour and in this way conjured a astonishing, indestructible, extraordinary celebration of the joy of making good theatre with people you love.
Henchmen was presented by Four Letter Word at the Union Theatre 24 – 26 September 2026.
KIERA EDELSTEIN is a First Year Bachelor of Arts student who loves all things reading, writing and storytelling. She doesn’t know what her major is yet but has decided in the meantime to take part in as many parts of the student-theatre that she can.
AZMY is a creative studying a Bachelor of Arts at UniMelb. This year, they are making theatre with The Werkz Ensemble and Cipta Theatre company!
The Dialog is supported by Union House Theatre
