Gilded Balloon – Billiard Room

Aug 8-29 :(13:15)

Script:  Stagecraft:   Performance: 

I’ve always found Physical Theatre an unusual organism to review. I write, I use words, I like to know what’s going on through the functioning of my frontal cortex. With Physical Theatre words are at the bare minimum, however, & the story must be told by other means. Come the Edinburgh festival, this equates to an hour of storytelling, so I took my seat in the pleasant Billiard Room theater at the Gilded Balloon like Simon Cowell at one of the audition days for the X-Factor – ie not expecting to be entertained a great deal. I was wrong, I loved it. They nailed it.

Buckle Up Theatre is a an experimental troupe – four good looking guys & gals who may have appeared on an X-Factor series…  if their muse was singing. Instead, it is all about full-power, theatrical tomfoolery which has a precision of performance that must have come from aeons of practice. They’re that tight. Their theme is a journey around Europe during the World War period – suitcases, video backdrops & multi-national attire attest to all that – the location of each scene being given away by a smattering of foreign words.

The whole thing is a joy to witness & despite not being able to follow its exact nuances, the general gist is enough to let you think you know whats going on in order to enjoy the pretty moving postcards sent by Buckle Up as they race about Europe at a million miles an hour. Their most delightful scene was one in which air was escaping from various orifices of the troupe, which of course needed plugging – comedy elysium! Combine their artistry with their choice of soundscapes & their faultless use of props & stage-settings, then among the great banquet that is the Fringe, Journeys is one of those really tasty, really creamy vol-au-vonts, & if you can this August, you should sneak one off the plate!

Reviewer ; Damian Beeson Bullen