Punk Off
09 March 2025
Dominion Theatre
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
Punk Off – The Sounds of Punk & New Wave has just finished its UK tour with a stop at the Dominion Theatre in London. Billing itself as “a rollercoaster ride you will never forget”, it’s really more of a staged concert best-of pop punk show.
The huge stage feels quite empty, with a backdrop showing the Camden Lock rail bridge, a few random doors and walls on the sides, and a live band shoved way into the background. The set pieces don’t serve any purpose, they’re just standing there as odd decorations, and the four dancers seem quite lost on the large stage at times. Surely putting the band centre stage would have been a much more dynamic and suitable decision for a show that hinges on the songs of a generation.
I really wanted to like this one, having grown up in the punk subculture through some of my teenage years, but unfortunately this one did not live up to expectations. While the live band comprised of Adam Evans, Ric Yarborough, and Philip Sherlock, is absolutely stunning, pumping out pure punk energy in the first half of the show, the structure of this show is just a little off. Instead of picking a storyline or character to tell a story of the explosion of Punk music and culture, there’s just Kevin Kennedy as a narrator talking about the history of punk rock, but feeling more like a nostalgic oldtimer reminiscing about his youth, which is honestly a little cringe. There are so many big names whose lives could have easily served to tell the story in a more compelling and less “let granddad tell you how it was back in the day” way. First and foremost, I would have loved to see a show constructed around the life of Vivienne Westwood, who had such a pivotal role in the British Punk culture.
Instead of an actual storyline, we get a narrator and four dancers who not only look very lost on the huge stage, but also seem to have been choreographed by a toddler in a sugar rush, flailing across the stage in poser-punk outfits. The song selection is more of a top-of-the-pops-punk-and-new-wave direction, not really delving into the subculture, but staying firmly in the shallows. There would have been a chance to give a wider variety of punk and new wave a display, yet the sound track feels quite limited and samey.
The second half does reduce the appearance of the dancers, and puts the band more centre stage, but it trades this for a lacklustre song selection that’s more pop than firmly new wave, veering away from the solid punk sounds and losing much of its already sparse charm. The storytelling becomes less, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the narration at times feels like your granddad interrupting the show you’re watching to tell you a quick sidebar from his youth. It does also add a few cheap jokes and some of the most cringey dancing I’ve witnessed in a theatre to date.
Overall, it’s definitely worth seeing the band, they’re incredibly skilled and talented, but the show doesn’t feel like a fully thought-through endeavour that tells a story, delves into history, and entertains while blasting punk waves at the audience. There’s a lot of potential, with a good amount of work this could becomes a decent show.
