Barricade [BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2012]

BIZARRE AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE 

ACROBATIC PERFORMANCE

FILLED WITH CRAZY STUNTS, 

MADCAP HUMOUR AND SOME 

INVENTIVE USES OF STAGING.

Image sourced from http://brightonfestival.org/event/584/barricade/

What's It All About Then?

Free dramatic performance held on Saturday 5th May at Hove Park as part of the Brighton Festival 2012. Barricade was created by NoFit State - a company that has performed in previous years at the Brighton Festival.


Description by the creators: "Two trucks block Hove Park. They disgorge their contents, creating an obstacle to normal paths and daily routines. Suddenly, the wind is rising. People are constructing defences to protect themselves from the storm. They hurry to bring tyres, ladders and other objects in impossible volumes. The barricade they build, a spectacular aerial playground, sets the scene for a maelstrom of breathtaking circus. Barricade invokes a glorious spirit of resistance to empower its people to fight for freedom. A freedom from their own fear, doubt and suspicion".

The stage used in Barricade was awesome in its own right.

So Is It Any Good?

+++ Big Thrills and Skills +++

The show was full of huge set pieces, with the entire stage turned into a giant playground for these very talented performers. They used the main floor, the wings, the rigging - and even had room to fit a full band in for musical accompaniment! 


The action that took place was jaw-dropping - seeing the performers lifted into the air on ladders that are hoisted and lowered in alarmingly swift movements (see very bad picture - right). Later on, there was a terrifying trapeze section that included stunts which seemed virtually impossible - and ended up requiring the safety rope to keep the artist from falling to the floor! Fair play to that woman though, she got straight back into it and tried again - this time pulling off a violent swinging spin while raised 20 feet into the air.


It was clear that these were top-quality performers showing off some of the more creative uses of their talents - the whole show was a whirlwind of jumps, spins and flips - all showcasing some of the finest circus skills that Brighton has seen.

+++ Variety Show +++
Small segments of the show diverted our attention to specific areas - the section badly photographed here involved a guy stuck on a perch above the stage with another performer coaxing him down. Every time he jumped down though, he would land on a trampoline and bounce straight back up! The guy down below then joined in, so the two were leaping between perch and stage in all sorts of acrobatic fashions. It was some nice light relief to the tense,  large-scale action in other parts of the show.


Then there was a middle "fight" scene that involved use of pyrotechnics - including flame staffs twirling through the night and bursts of flame shot into the air. This sensational spectacle lit up the entire park, leading to many "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience. The majority, myself included, were captivated by the brilliant visual drama that unfolded - I don't think my eyes turned from the stage once during the hour-long set.

--- Hard To Follow ---

The main problem I found with the show was the "story". There seemed to be a tale about an authoritarian regime and  people rising up against it - but that was guesswork based on costumes really. The dialogue consisted of some guys with European accents shouting "We must fight!" before cartwheeling across the stage in crazed fashion.


Other sections had a multitude of performers talking about being "sorry for their sins" - with one woman seemingly repeating this in French. I wasn't quite sure why they were doing this and it was quite bewildering for everyone watching - all of the conversations I overheard on the way out of the Park generally went "That was good! No idea what was going on!". "Yep, same here. Looked great but was very confusing".


So the hard-to-understand story detract from the fantastic action being shown - it's just that no-one knew what it was all about. A small issue with a dazzling performance.

Conclusions

This show was very impressive -
each of the performers was showing off spectacular skills throughout.


The variety in scale and mood for the action was good to see - quiet, humorous sections broke up the big action.


If only I knew what the show was all about!
Looking forward to next year's production.

Feel free to post comments or contributions to improve the experience!
All images in this review are taken by Brighton Games Trader (except otherwise stated).

Brighton Must-Sees [BRIGHTON FRINGE 2012]

JUST A QUICK RUNDOWN OF THREE COMEDY ACTS THAT WERE SHOWN FOR FREE AS PART OF THE BRIGHTON FRINGE.

Host - Dec Munro
The Thursday 17th performance was warmed up by Dec from Test Tube Comedy, who tried to get the audience in the right mood by informing us that the plan for the night was to "Say 'Hi', high five and then start with the public sex". As I turned up for this event with my mum and brother, you would imagine that this would lead to embarrassment. Thankfully, my family aren't too shocked by humorous insinuations of incest - so a bit of incestuous banter made the room chuckle uncomfortably. 


Dec got the audience is a cheeky, positive mood and made us feel engaged in proceedings - setting the stage for the first act to really knock us out, yeah? Hmmm...


Mike Sheer
The first act was a young Canadian guy who begun with more crude and controversial jokes to make the audience a little uncomfortable. These focused on hatred of Jewish people (the comedian describing himself as Jewish - and hating Jewish people too), jokes about Canadians and Americans and hints at darker jokes as well.


Sadly, the room didn't warm to these themes - I don't think anyone was happy laughing along too much about Jew hatred and the Canadian/American stuff was a little lost on us (is there some sort of tension there?).


The set wasn't helped by a Brightonian heckler with an Irish accent - so the comedian tried to make jokes based on his accent - to which the heckler kept knocking him back with "I'm from Brighton, you jack ass". Yeesh.


Nick Purves
The second comedian described himself as a boarding school kid and sported a very posh accent. Luckily, he was able to joke about his upbringing in a way that made the crowd laugh - his anecdote about a schoolyard disagreement over "Lord of the Flies" that turned to fisticuffs made the majority of the tough room giggle.


He managed to hold his own through the fifteen minute set, going through other events in his life in a lighthearted fashion - including overcoming his speech impediment which he described in humorous scenes which were very amusing to watch. A good performance. 


Sajeela Kershi
The final comedian was a woman who described herself as coming from a posh town in Surrey but was raised with Asian Muslim traditional values. Her humour was quite centred on issues surrounding the Islam faith, such as her dirty fantasies about Allah sucking on a pork sausage and her experiences as a child... with Elton John.


Sajeela was a confident and talented performer - she took charge of the room as she walked on and got plenty of laughs with her outrageous humour. Getting the audience involved too - she accused one gentleman of coming to her home town solely for dogging purposes. Niiiiice. 


She was possibly the most popular act of the show - providing laughs throughout and showing off her skills as a great comedy storyteller. Highly entertaining.

A nice sneak preview of some of the acts who have bigger shows during the Fringe - I'm not sure how many of the audience would have paid to go and see the full acts but they were certainly a good laugh in fifteen minute slots.

Feel free to post comments or contributions to improve the experience!

Eccentronic: We Won't Rock You [BRIGHTON FRINGE 2012]

CHEESY SPECTACULAR WITH 
BUNDLES OF CREATIVITY AND 
TONS OF GEEKY CHARM.


ALTHOUGH NOT THE HIGHEST QUALITY
PRODUCTION YOU'LL EVER SEE
THE ABSURD ENERGY CARRIED IT OFF.

This is John making and handing out cheese toasties during the show. Yes he did.

What's It All About Then?

Free comedy show held on Saturday 19th May at the Caroline of Brunswick pub as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival 2012. Eccentronic are made up of John Callaghan and Ms Hypnotique.


Described as "a zesty melee of electronic musical mash-ups and oddball humour" featuring songs about "...time-wasting, socks and visiting the Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch".

They moved around so much that it was very difficult to get any decent photos of them!

So Is It Any Good?

+++ Geeky Thrills +++

This was an exceptionally geeky show - and that is meant as a MASSIVE compliment. Starring a guy who quotes one of his biggest influences as Timmy Mallett and a gal who rocks out in a corset playing the theremin, this show is a stadium-filling show-stopping musical masterpiece... condensed into an hour-long slightly-corny pub-back-room show.


Featuring musical nods to Queen (obvs), N.W.A., Electric Light Orchestra, Pet Shop Boys, Sisqo, Pulp and Black Lace - all worked into songs concerning cheffing, coming "Straight Outta Trumpton" and the overwhelming desire to make cheese toasties. Which they then did while on stage. And passed round to the audience. Totally awesome.


The song about the Welsh town - Llanfair-whatsit - was equally brilliant. While sounding like a gimmick, they did actually manage to write a chorus that featured the name broken up into chunks in a sort of Kraftwerk fashion (something like Llan, Llanfair, Llanfairpwyllgwyngyll etc.). To round that off, there was a Welsh guy in the audience who gave us a fluid demonstration of how the name sounds in the native accent - to a huge round of cheers from everyone else!

The subtitles for the song about that Welsh town - maybe as a prompt for the band?

+++ Fun-Filled Blitz +++

The show was energetic from start to finish - the performers "bigged themselves up" in such a humorous and bombastic fashion that the audience came round to them very quickly. They then broke into a song about frying that involved a frying pan to the face (nice!). Before the show was finished, there had been several costume changes, a variety of styles and instruments, an in-depth analysis of the workings of musical comedy and just the right level of audience participation so as to make it enjoyable inclusive.


They had down moments, the slow-tempo version of Thong Song played with a minuature hand barrel piano added a nice change in pace while still being hilariously funny. The last few songs were a middle class rap - with some very bad ("bad" bad - not "good" bad) street dance moves - and a audience-based version of Agadoo/Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Bikini that rounded off the evening well. 


We were then asked what final number we would like: a cleverly worded piece by John that artistically wraps up the show or a Queen-based number from Ms Hypnotique that has a grand-finale feel to it?


We actually went for the first one - obviously the audience was like me - they actually really got into the witty, geeky parody writing and wanted one last cheeky, cheesy tune to close things. It was indeed satisfactorily cheesy and it was fun to watch as they performed a fairly complicated canon piece...  fairly badly. We all laughed our socks off because of that though.

--- Slightly Quality Issues ---

So just to offer some constructive feedback on where I think it could have been improved - the volume in the room was a bit offset so that the electronic backing tracks often drowned out whatever jokes were being made by the performers. People near the front laughed a lot but maybe they could hear the performers directly. Further back you could hear faint mumbling and a lot of synth for some numbers. 


Another point is that some of the singing and theremin playing was a little too crap to be funny at points - big long notes wailed off-key and theremin floating loosely near the tune they were trying to emulate (so during one song I had to guess where we were in the tune because it was nowhere near). When they asked a member of the audience to try the theremin - and a randomer just fancied giving it a go - the noise produced was actually slightly better! Ah well, this may have been that on the tracks where Ms Hypnotique was playing the theremin that the speakers setup made it difficult to hear her part - but it was often distinctly wobbly at points.

The rap numbers were good... I think.... but very hard to hear.

Conclusions

This show was great fun -
 they cheated me out of my entry fee though:
they did, in fact, rock me.

The atmosphere was spot-on but perhaps the sound system could be improved upon. 

The show didn't take itself seriously and the guys just went all out to provide a jolly good laugh. Nice work.

Feel free to post comments or contributions to improve the experience!
Any images in this review are taken by Brighton Games Trader.

Trolleys [BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2012]

THIS REVIEW IS GOING TO SOUND
AWFULLY STRANGE
BUT BEAR WITH IT.

THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE PIECE
THAT WAS A JOY TO WATCH.....


AND WAS ACTED OUT 
WITH SHOPPING TROLLEYS.

What's It All About Then?

A dance performance held on Saturday 19th May at Marina Square, Brighton Marina.


Trolleys was created by Australian choreographer Shaun Parker and London’s C-12 Dance Theatre.

Described as "a new street ballet for five supermarket trolleys… Five shopping trolleys randomly appear in a public space. Two meet and fall in love. One grapples to find a friend. Three others revolt and ignite a dance of anarchy. Part street dance, part ballet, part acrobatic spectacle, Trolleys is a high-octane, highly physical and humorous outdoor performance – on wheels!".

So Is It Any Good?

+++ Dramatic Performance +++

The tagline of "new street ballet for... trolleys" is perfectly fitting. This is a dramatically-acted piece about five trolleys which interact with each other in weird and wonderful ways. The performers move themselves in perfect co-ordination and make the trolleys spin in beautiful patterns.


At points, two trolleys will take centre stage - playing off one-another and featuring some tense, spectacular moments - which all revolve around these cages of metal on wheels.

The performers show some fantastic acrobatic skills during the course of the show - such as flips, cartwheels and twists - all over the trolleys. The pictures here show some of the moves being performed and there was a lot more where that came from.


This was all weaved in with little sections where different scenes were acted out - one trolley being singled out and  isolated from the others (which presented in a sheep/sheepdog type movement) - others where serenity would be shattered by the sudden flipping, spinning and swerving of a few of the group. Each was placed for maximum effect - so that a slow section would suddenly burst into action all around. It was wonderful to watch and really breathtaking.

Almost captured him doing a back flip off the trolley.

+++ Enjoyable Entertainment +++

The playful way that the performers weaved around each other was great to see - they had smiles on their faces for the majority of the show and as a result I found myself smiling too.


The careful precision, along with some daring moves while standing on the trolleys and a little smile to show they were enjoying themselves, meant that I thoroughly enjoyed watching these five trolley/human hybrids elegantly working their way around the square.


During some of the sections, when all of the performers picked up the trolleys and swung them wildly around in the air, there was the added element of danger for the crowd. There was no barrier between the dancers and the audience - so one slip of a hand could have led to a trolley flying into the onlookers. It was an added thrill that made the performance all the more intense! 



I had serious health concerns for shoppers at the Asda down the road though - the amount of trolley-related injuries through amateur dancing must have skyrocketed following this show!

+++ Violin Complement +++

To round it all off, the violin soundtrack which accompanied the piece perfectly matched the movements being shown. The violin was used in slow, drawn notes during the peaceful sections and rose to sharp, short notes that increased in intensity as the action built to a climax. 


It fitted the tone and feeling of the show so well that it almost faded into the background as I became more absorbed with the performance - just washing over me as I let the flowing patterns formed by these everyday items hold my attention.


As such, every part of the show worked well together - there is virtually nothing that I can complain about. I can only praise the idea, choreography and execution of the performance - and hope to see more from these fantastic dancers/writers in the future.

Conclusions

I found this to be the most interesting thing I have seen so far at the Brighton Festival 2012.


It had personality, flair and showed off some incredible skill. The dancers seemed to enjoy performing the piece and I loved watching it.


Seriously amazing stuff - I really recommend seeing these guys perform if you get the chance.

Feel free to post comments or contributions to improve the experience!
Any images in this review are taken by Brighton Games Trader.