(3 / 5)

In a bright yellow container, we are encompassed by the comedy stylings of Dru Cripps. Suggested to me by another fellow comedic clown, I await to embark upon an hour of improvisation.

Beginning with a mime act, engaging with the audience and immediately getting us to create sounds with his prompt through mime, the room soon descends into chaos with a few more rambunctious amongst us providing more of the content for Dru to pull upon. With his smiling face, he takes this in his stride and uses it fully to his advantage; it does almost feel as if it was scripted and planned.

The wool is pulled back from our eyes as Dru reveals he indeed can talk and we start a different part to the show using his loop machine to create music, prompted by selected audience members on jobs, interests and music tastes. His quick uptake and ability to create a song is really clever and skilful but there is still a slight essence of unsurety and nervousness in his engagement, understandable for such a big festival.

Dru doesn’t let anything stop him – when the unplanned power goes out and descends us into darkness, it takes a moment for Dru to pause in the hopes that this comes back quickly. When it doesn’t, he improvises a funny but slightly scary moment in the dark, using a torch and the length of the container, and this adds to our giggles.

Dru Cripps: Juicy Bits is a fun performance to be surprised by and ideally what Fringe is about; something unusual and unexpected, in amongst the big flashing lights. He has a great career ahead of him with a little bit of confidence in his abilities.

(4 / 5)

“Lizzie Borden took an axe/She gave her mother forty whacks/When she saw what she had done/She gave her father forty-one.” We do like to make nursery rhymes out of the morbid. The tale of Borden is probably most likely known because of its associated rhyme. This grotesque tale, often part of true-crime fame, has been taken by Out Of The Forest Theatre and dissected for us as a play querying Borden’s true tale.

Beginning the show, we are introduced to our three performers through song, with a folk twist. They enter the stage, foreboding, in dress to fit the era of Borden but soon break into different characters. Throughout, they will take on the multiple roles throughout the production, but break that forth wall to question the facts as well as one another on the case. They take what is written in history, and attempt to find some logic and whether Borden was really guilty or not. They drive the theatrical, creating scenes that are explicitly potential reasonings around the act, ones we have no idea that are true but with some evidence to point somewhere in those directions.

This chopping and changing of not only roles but from the scene to the debate is highly effective; with the use of basic props and changes in light and song, they are able to break those walls between the dramatic scene and analysing what is shown. With them, we begin to think about our own opinion of the case, through the truths and through the mistakes, and truly, I come out even more unsure than before, with compelling storytelling for both guilty and innocent.

They also use little bits of comedy; they bounce off one another, tiny “arguments” in the debating, or banter between friends, sometimes addressing us within this, making it endearing and does well to break down the barriers of the morbid.

The music and accompanied singing is faultless; it helps not only set the scene and embed us in the era, but it is catchy and sometimes a little creepy, adding to the emotions heightened throughout. The use of live instruments, as simple a band as this is, fills the room and only adds to the atmosphere created.

Bury The Hatchet is a well rounded production, creating an atmosphere of suspicion and sleuthing and a place for true-crime nuts to sink their teeth into.

(4 / 5)

What a privilege it is to be able to see Marina Abramović’s work so often in the current day. Being brought up studying her performance art pieces, over the years, Abramović seems to be creating more and more work in London and each one new and as fascinating as the next and I feel lucky to be able to see them first hand and continue to be inspired.

As part of the Multitudes Festival, she has joined with pianist Igor Levit to combine classical music and her quintessential durational work to create a performance across 20 hours. The options to come in and out throughout these 20 hours or find yourself with a 1 hour slot in itself delivers a unique experience for each audience member and the feat of the art is, not only what Abramović is famous for, her bread and butter, but still managing to be something new and exciting.

Vexations is based on a one page score of its namesake. While simplistic on paper, the score is ordered to repeat multiple times and throughout the 20 hours, Levit does just that. But it changes; the tempo, the tone, the volume, the intention, it is somehow different every time and even in a 1 hour slot, it lulls you, surprises you, creates a dreamlike state and shocks you. You find each iteration to be new in some way and never the same as the previous. Levit first performed this over live stream during the Covid lockdown, with an aim to comment on the experience of all but especially the hardships of artists at the time. There certainly feels like a poignant commentary on this, and becomes relatable for everyone; who else remembers the days of doing the same things over and over, but those rare times of something new to break up those long years?

Front and centre, Levit is at his piano, tearing at sheets when a page is complete and throwing it in disarray on the stage, building and building over the hours. He approaches the music each time as if it is something new. By my slot, 7 hours have passed, and the endurance is clear and painful, with movement in his body, changes from sitting to standing, uncomfortable and becoming stiff, an almost madness in his eyes but also something playful alongside it. Untouched snacks are provided to satiate but he never reaches for them. He does however abruptly break, a strange moment when looking around the auditorium, while he goes to the toilet or grabs some food, that the durational audience members treat this as some kind of break, to check their phones or break themselves; almost like a unwritten interval. Watching Levit himself, while directly or through the huge mirror above, looking down like a topsy-turvy world, is intoxicating and strangely, the music at no point becomes unbearable or monotonous.

To accompany him, the black and white tiled stage is littered with well placed seating and audience members, chosen to sit and basque in the performance, eyes closed and in the moment. This is facilitated by two performers who move around with strong intent but at glacial speeds and no emotion. It is somewhat frightening but also calming at the same time. A wave of adrenaline as they come to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, will I be next? Another wave of disappointment (or maybe relief) when you’re not. But there’s also a tenderness in the blank faces and a sense of care by how they move and how they handle the audience members. It feels like a less aggressive selection process for a school sports team, or like becoming a “chosen one” from a crowd, being brought through a wall or veil we cannot see, highlighted by the preparation of shoe removal before stepping on the tiles. And watching this movement also lulls you, it is fascinating, and you can’t quite take your eyes off the performers or how the audience interact – some accept their fate, some are excited, one begins to move almost as if they have been replaced by the performer and copies her when he is released back to his seat, still in this trance-like state. One poor chap, with a wristband to show he is a durational audience member and therefore been here a while, suddenly loses all sense of his body, the performer still in a glacial but sped up way, not breaking character, rushing to him before he falls. He himself seems to have been pushed into a trance, and likely in need of water and nourishment, it is an occurrence that shows the impact it not only has on the audience but the sheer strength of the performers and Levit during these 20 hours.

And while touched upon already, there is a third performer – us. Or more specifically, those (in my opinion, lucky enough) to have been able to be there for the full day. What interesting experiences must they have had over that time, visually and also within themselves. I looked around and they themselves had become part of the performance – comfortable clothing, bobbing along to the music as if at a rock concert, cushions and blankets as if camped out to be the first in line at a festival or to get tickets, their seats marked by coffee cups or their bags on their chosen breaks. It was a social study that they were unaware they were part of and it only added to the essence of this performance.

Vexations certainly brings a new and interesting approach to the intention of the Multitudes festival. Breaking all the rules, it encompasses the whole room, physically and mentally, creating a unique experience and feeling but also an unusual and one of a kind pocket universe through song and physical art.