physical theatre
Mary Mazzilli
Beijing International Fringe Festival, virtually unheard of in the UK, closed last Sunday after three weeks’ showcasing the best talent in drama, musical theatre, dance and experimental theatre in China. It was conceived in 2008 as a small local festival using university performance spaces to give voice to young directors and young talent. Back then it comprised a mere 10 productions. This year there were 54 productions in 11 venues around Beijing. They ranged from drama and physical theatre to dance and opera; a few workshops and stage readings were also included in the programme. It Read more ...
Ismene Brown
What you see in the picture is the money shot, and yes, it's a miracle that you won't fully believe, even as you watch it. But there are plenty of other belief-defying miracles in the Guangdong Acrobats’ version of Swan Lake - just don’t make the mistake of calling it a ballet, especially not in earshot of the haute-couture Mariinsky Ballet, currently up the road at Covent Garden. This is pure freaky acrobatic theatre, in a tradition that goes back two millennia in China, and driven by an insatiable ambition to outreach the possible which could only come out of so ancient and serious a Read more ...
Ismene Brown
The Flying Karamazov Brothers give a new meaning to the word “practised”. Their first stage show in 1981 was called Juggling and Cheap Theatrics - a smart title that they could have kept for the show they bring to London’s West End, largely made of routines that this celebrated US comedy-juggling act have been doing for decades. It’s weird to see in YouTubes of their early performances some of the material I watched last night at the Vaudeville. Still, the fact is those old juggling routines remain mesmerising to the eye, even if their humour is as worn-through as the bum of Seasick Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Dropped trousers, audience participation and an onstage skiffle band fronted by a singer/songwriter boasting specs by way of Buddy Holly: what has become of the National Theatre's Lyttelton auditorium? Well, let's just say that for the entire first act of One Man, Two Guvnors, it's got to be easily the giddiest theatrical address in town. And when the momentum flags, as it does somewhat after the interval, not to worry. By that point, Richard Bean's Goldoni rewrite has generated enough goodwill that you all but float home.That is, if you even feel like leaving, given a show so full of high Read more ...
Ismene Brown
If you’re looking for a surprising and off-the-wall show this school holidays, I’ve no hesitation in hugely recommending Chouf Ouchouf, a brilliantly and theatrically inventive acrobat theatre show performed by the Groupe Acrobatique de Tangier, a troupe of Moroccan acrobats who learned their awesome skills on Tangier Beach. Through the wit and imagination of its Swiss theatre directors, the show manages to retain a lively street smell and yet pull off some deft theatrical effects, blurring the edges between normality and strangeness - one moment you feel you might be walking in a souk, Read more ...
fisun.guner
Robert Lepage is not just one of the most fêted and sought-after theatre directors in the world; he is also one of the most prolific. His international breakthrough came with The Dragon Trilogy in 1985, and since then the French-Canadian’s work has been seen across the globe. His stunningly ambitious production of Wagner’s Ring cycle was recently performed at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and he conceived and directed Cirque du Soleil’s latest acrobatic blockbuster, Totem, which can currently be seen at the Royal Albert Hall. Meanwhile, he has also found time to add dancing to his Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Five people stand in the dark. A bleak gantry descends with a rumble onto their heads. They scuttle under it and flatten themselves to escape a crushing, but then they get up and start building. The platform is stripped of planks, rebuilt at crazy angles, refashioned while decorating the tasks with acrobatic surprises. At a steep tilt a plank is both a slide and human catapult, or makes a terrific wobbling noise if slapped right; as an upright it’s perfect for a girl to shin up and then array herself in a bouffant Boucher Pompadour dress of crumpled paper, later to be elegantly torn off in Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's a strange thing that boxing, that most dramatic of sports, hasn't been the subject of more plays. It has a protagonist and antagonist, the ring is a ready-made stage, and the sport has thrown up more than its fair share of larger-than-life characters. So, as with buses, when you're waiting for one to come along, two arrive in quick succession; Roy Williams's Sucker Punch, which was at the Royal Court earlier this year, and now the equally brilliant Beautiful Burnout. Comparisons are invidious, so I won't make any, other than to remark that they are two very different beasts.Bryony Lavery Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Archaos were the mad, bad and dangerous troupe who revolutionised circus back in the Eighties and early Nineties – their antics with juggling chainsaws, raunchy Galllic attitude and mayhem with motorbikes is celebrated with a pop-up exhibition at the Bargehouse in the Oxo Tower Wharf on the South Bank for just three days ending on Sunday. It’s also a tribute to the genial genius behind the troupe, Pierre Bidon, who died earlier this year, at the age of 56.The exhibition features all sorts of memorabilia (and press cuts, including some by me from the not-very-lamented Blitz magazine - I went Read more ...
Veronica Lee
This is a show of such originality and inventiveness that I will struggle to convey just how much fun it is to watch a man perform sight gags and physical comedy for an hour - and who does indeed appear throughout with a strip of black gaffer tape over his mouth.The Boy with Tape on His Face, Gilded Balloon ****
Although New Zealander Sam Wills doesn’t speak a word and uses clowning skills in his act, this is far removed from the kind of knockabout humour that is usually accompanied by a hooter to mark the punchline. Instead he has an incredibly expressive face to convey his thoughts, whether Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Charm is as invisible as the circus but as undeniably present in Le Cirque Invisible, an adorable little presentation for which parents should go miles with children to see this month. Charlie Chaplin’s fourth daughter and her husband are not young things any more, and their two-person show is at least 40 years old in its various guises - but they simply keep adding and subtracting gags, costumes, dressing-up box illusions, magic tricks, rabbits, soap-bubbles, locking down a hall of children and parents for two and a half hours in raptures.Victoria Chaplin is a bendy little acrobat with Read more ...
Veronica Lee
He may describe himself as “a Geordie chancer”, but in reality Jason Cook is a warm comic whose material is utterly devoid of cynicism. Yet he’s far from being pious - he spices up his act with caustic barbs for deserving targets (quite often himself) and has a raft of sharp putdowns for hecklers who think they’re wittier than he is.Jason Cook, The Stand ****
Much of his material is autobiographical, but Cook subtly weaves in the occasional untruth for added levity. And despite the sly sexual references in his act, he is the antithesis of the modern misogynistic comic, an uxorious bloke who Read more ...