PEOPLE SHOW 111 THE SLIDE SHOW till 12 July

PEOPLE SHOW 111 THE SLIDE SHOW

People Show On tour to 12 July 2003
Runs 1hr 20min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 June at bac studio 1

Polite smiles rather than Dionysiac ecstasy.
Tidily, indeed uptightly, dressed with English formality and reserve, two speakers offer a lecture on Thrace, birthplace of Dionysus, god of wine and theatre. Like every tourist they think they've captured the world on celluloid, whereas really the world's after them.

One look at a slide of Mark Long's mocking features, with bunch of grapes and vine-leaves, makes it clear the tourists are up against something right outside their parish. Then the Dionysiac image starts moving, following a cheeky nod with a cigarette and bottle of plonk, before setting off to the forest pursued by the soon-entangled pair (Lip Service-like mix of actors on stage disappearing into filmed images of themselves).

Soon, the would-be lecturers' reserved, not to say strained, English relationship, characterised by sips of port, is interrupted by the gods represented by a moustache and beard bursting in heatedly on their tepid lives.

It's amusing, and it has a point though hardly a very new point (Equus was on the same lines, for one). Creese and Tigg work well in a deadpan way, appearing through the aperture created when the slide-screen disappears to open up new worlds, making a variety of comic tableaux at all kinds of angles, zooming around on microscooters, their smoothness of motion matched by fixity of expression.

But despite this, and lunatic ideas such as talking cheese, the People Show are up against far tougher competition than in their early years after forming in 1966. Physical theatre and comedy crops up almost everywhere - no scenic, technical, movement or other theatrical corner has been left untouched. So, Tigg's instrumental strumming instantly call to mind The Right Size's Sean Foley and the ukelele what he plays.

In this world, and without the inspired individuality of such People Show-ers as Long with his verbal flourishes, or George Khan's sax riffs, let alone Chahine Yavroyhan's taciturn pianism (he's now diversified into the world of illumination), the current cast's amiability is makes for pleasant amusement, but doesn't stand out from the Hoipolloi, or Peepolykus. In this competitive world, the one-time market leaders are struggling to keep up.

Performers:
Fiona Creese, Nick Tagg

Tour:
to 29 June bac studio 1 Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 5.30pm 020 7223 2223 www.bac.org.uk
9-10 July Komedia Brighton 01273 647100
12 July Trinity Theatre Tunbridge Wells 01892 678678

2003-06-28 10:01:58