The Roundhouse, London – until 15th April. Reviewed by Heather Chalkley
5*****
Pirates of the Carabina (POC) presents Relentless Unstoppable Human Machine
The programme tells us this is the story of two neighbours and you wonder how can a circus tell a story? At the start you have no clue what is coming until it happens.
The set is like a construction site, a bit like a circus but different! The Roundhouse feels like a big top but isn’t!
When you think of traditional circus, it conjures imagines of ringmasters, painted clowns, custard pies and high wires. Be prepared to have your mind twisted to a side ways view on that by a cast of internationally renowned performers.
Like a traditional circus everyone is family and does everything: musicians, riggers, safety spotters and performers, all roles intertwining. However POC take it to a whole different level with themselves as leverage, literally, using good old fashioned block and tackle mechanics!
The performers are all levered, pulled, pulleyed, bounced, spun and swung! All the time using themselves as human counterweights.
Each of the performers has an individual quirky character, all of which you can warm too. The neighbours Seren Corigan and Jack Rees. Seren Corigan and Ellis Grover, Clowns with grace in their tumbles and humour in their precision balance. Shaena Brandel, a whimsie with trepidation and poetry in her silks, hoop and rope work. Then Eric McGill, a dynamic trapeze artist dressed in a suit! Most importantly, the counterweights, Barnz Munn and Jade Dunbar. All had a role to play.
The direction by James Williams gave fantastic storytelling that keeps you engaged, with the two neighbours at the centre. The score by world renowned Meg Ella kept live music integrated into the performance, including rhythmic typewriting! Ballads and a skiffle band all blend perfectly. Everyone is always doing something, every movement has a purpose: to story tell; as a part of the set or setting up the next scene.
POC have created art, in poetic motion, in dynamic physicality, in lyrical, graceful humour.
Mouth drop moments include: when you realise the rope artist is being kept up by Barnz Munn on the other end; when the neighbour is trying to encourage next door to play and share the rope and suddenly they counterbalance one another, high above the audience; when the trapeze safety harness comes off.
Then when you think it can’t get any better, Meg Ella playing the piano rises up the rigging. This time it is Jade Dunbar on the other end of the pulley.
Barnz Munn and the Design Team have created a set that blends art and science in a visual feast. It is clever in it’s adaptability to both use and for any venue. The collapsing staircase is inspired!
The penultimate scene is a piece of art in motion that includes every element and every performing artists: trepidation, grace, humour and dynamism.
The story concludes as it begun, with the exception of the neighbours now as friends, no longer strangers.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the invention of modern circus by Philip Astley and his wife Patty. What a way to kick off the 2018 CircusFest celebrations! If this is the calibre of performances on offer we are all in for a real treat!