Flown

A night of Contemporary Circus for a change. Flown by Pirates of the Carabina was playing at Stratford Circus. A nice small venue which I eventually found having got lost in the Westfield. Problem with the Westfield is that it happily has maps all over the place, but only of the interior of the complex. Its not really in their interests to tell you how to escape!

Anyway, back to the show. An entertaining mix of music, physical acts and comedy. Very much family entertainment in the sense that one doesn't need much in the way of cultural background to enjoy it. Its also really quite hard to describe it. I suppose the nub is that it is a series of performances which are linked, not really by a narrative or theme, just that one act morphs into another, and while our attention is drawn to spotlit performance in one place, the next bit is being prepared up above, or at the back.

As an example, there is a high-wire act, but the bloke is also wired up to a microphone, so while performing an act he is also telling you his life story, albeit a little breathlessly (well he had a lot to concentrate on). Its dramatic and dynamic and engaging, an hour and a bit whizzed by quite happily. How can one fail to like a performance which features an ironing board so much?

 My only criticism would be that it didn't quite feel as well polished a performance as it might be. Difficult to say quite what was lacking without seeing it. And if I was doing it I think I would have tried some better known songs to go with it, not that what was there was bad or sang poorly, quite the opposite, just that it lacked the familiarity which I might have liked to accompany what I was watching. But I hope this gets a decent audience when it transfers to Udderbelly. Or indeed in Edinburgh or Glastonbury.

Photos courtesy of Crying Out Loud.

http://www.cryingoutloud.org/

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