Jacques the Kipper has been out and about again. And he's got something to recommend to you:-Our friendly neighbourhood Villain likes a first, and I'm reckoning this may be just that for his blog - a review of Street Dance Theatre.
Earlier this week, having decided that my family needed to broaden their musical and cultural boundaries, I dragged them along to the Edinburgh Festival Theatre where the Bounce Street Dance Company were presenting their version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, "Insane in the Brain".
It was a night for 17 year old boys with the healthiest, best looking audience that I've ever witnessed at any gig or show. (Clearly not a night for the Villain then!) And what a show it was. It began with humour and ended with grief, with well nigh every emotion squeezed in-between.
If you've seen the film, you'll know the basic premise. It's set in a psychiatric hospital dominated by the sadistic head nurse, Mildred Ratched. A newcomer to the ward, Randall Patrick McMurphy, results in a power struggle between nurses and patients that, in this version, is danced out pretty much non-stop over the next hour and a half.
The constant physicality of it over that period is astonishing and the choreography of chaos throughout is fantastic, drawing us into a mad world in every sense of the phrase. Highlights for me include the night scene (Darklight -coordinated, spotlit bed dancing !), the Daytrip (including Tramptown, a black and white film short), and Electroshock (ever wondered what three people being electrocuted while hanging from a wall might look like ?). There's hardly any dialogue, and even that was superfluous so far as I was concerned, but (maybe rather worryingly) even my ten year old could follow the plot.
The music ? Well, fair to say that, in our family, me and the ten year old probably enjoyed that most, but what a selection - Luke Vibert, Mr Oizo, Missy Elliott, Meat Beat Manifesto, System of a Down, Dizzee Rascal, David Holmes and a certain Edvard Hagerup Grieg, to name some of those better known. Block rocking beats right enough.
If you want to know more about Bounce themselves, then head over to http://www.insanetour.co.uk/show.php and read it in their own words. Upcoming dates also listed there.
If you're thinking about taking your easily offended ten year old, then bear in mind that the "adult themes" include an f word, a sex doll, some brief simulated sex and a bit of death. I wouldn't let that put anyone off though. A top night out. And if your venue is anything like Edinburgh, then you'll get a chance to try out some breakdancing in the foyer beforehand.
See you at the discotheque on Friday night, JC!!!
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