Little Lark of London

“There is no solution, Thor. Our habitat is screwed”

Thor the Walrus is based on the true story of Thor, a walrus who was first spotted in November 2022 in the Netherlands and then made his way to the UK, spending New Year’s Eve in Scarborough Harbour. We are given a backstory for the young walrus, who is struggling to accept his fate and wants to travel to Norway in order to find a better life. Unfortunately for Thor, he fails to get out of a jetstream and ends up in England, where he becomes the hostage of an intense Coast Guard and curious tourists.

The performer playing Thor is dressed in a walrus onesie, wearing flippers and rolling around on the floor in order to move around. It’s a funny gag that is used a few times throughout the show. There is also another effective gag in which news reporters emerge from television sets made out of cardboard, poking their heads out to speak to the audience and interact with one another. All of the actors (excluding the one playing Thor) play a range of characters, going from sea creatures to humans within seconds. 

Unfortunately, Thor the Walrus tries to do too many things at once, when it should be focused on Thor and the other walruses.There are some dark moments including a thief cutting of and stealing Thor’s tusk and protestors putting nails in their tongues as some unexplained action against climate change, but these moments lose their seriousness when paired with scenes in which television reporters interview Taylor Swift’s PR team or when Thor is tripping on drugs to “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles, doing an interpretive dance around the stage.

 It is difficult to tell whether the humans can actually understand Thor, as it is something that is never established.  He is recruited by Bill from the Leaf Party to get involved in politics and has a debate with a protestor who has handcuffed herself to Thor, but then there are scenes in which the humans worry that Thor is gaining sentience – how much can the two species understand? A psychiatrist is brought in to analyse Thor and he is told he has to deal with his anger levels, but it feels like more of a jab at the psychiatrist than anyone else.

There is also a bizarre and random joke about the male news reporter crossdressing that has no impact on the show as a whole and is played simply for laughs in what was supposed to be a darker ending. Indeed, the ending as a whole is a bit disappointing, as it tries to bring in too many issues that had barely been touched upon throughout the show, including BP and oil rigs. There is also a subplot thrown in of the man operating the teleprompter suddenly supporting Thor in his escape, something that was not very well-established earlier in the show. 

Ultimately, Thor the Walrus is a show with an interesting concept that, unfortunately, struggles to find itself between jokes and moments of seriousness about climate change. Had it focused on the journey of Thor and his relationship with the humans he interacts with instead of trying to fit in as many climate change debates as possible, it could have been a more solid show.

Thor the Walrus ran on 17 and 24 July at Omnibus Theatre. For more information, click here.