Review: Still No Idea, Bunny Productions, Southbank Centre by Hannah Goslin

 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

You want to make a show but you don’t know what about. So where do you start? What are you tools? But even better, what if the show was about making a show?

Bunny Productions, with performers Lisa Hammond and Rachael Spence invite us to experience their thought process, their research data, which heavily includes verbatim suggestions and thoughts from the public. At times, this can be a risk, and as Bunny find out, there are a range of ideas and comments culminating in some comical but drawing a topical conclusion.

As a disabled actress, Hammond has been working in the industry for many years, seeking roles for her talent and not for her disability. Due to pain management, Hammond has an automatic wheelchair, one she is able to leave whenever she likes to. But, while the pair wanted to make a show not about disability, this seemed to be the only way to go when a public cannot get past the chair.

We learn important lessons about stereotyping with both performers, and learn about them in their reality: Hammond comes across as if like she is always up to mischief while Spence is the more demure, goody two shoes. We soon learn in life this is the other way around, but we can see that the industry and how we as an audience perceive what we see on stage and screen is often firstly aesthetics, and at times this can unjustly be what disabled artists encounter daily.

Bunny have this wonderful rapport on stage. Bouncing off one another, there is clearly a basis to the show, perfected for the stage but you also feel as if their undying trust for one another lets them have fun with the details, and while in a normal production, it would be perceived as ‘corpsing’, their break away from perhaps the ‘script’ just adds to their charm and their partnership.

The show is full of comedy, using multimedia to at times enhance this, giving it a more stage element than us being invited to chat; but this doesn’t distract from us feeling welcome, as part of their on stage presence and almost like friends. And while comedy is a huge factor, we are soon hit with the hard facts. Information of the deaths and problems disabled persons have faced with benefits being withdrawed, is a punch to the gut after laughing and smiling for 45 mins, but it is needed and really hits home all their points they have culminated and projected to us.

Still No Idea is a lot of fun, a lot of food for thought and very much a show we need in the current climate.

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