This review and show is only for the over 18's. If you are easily offended or dislike nudity please stop reading now!!
Well it is very rare indeed that either Jet or I see any contemporary dance or Ballet events out of choice, but that was exactly the effect reading previews of this show had on us. So we bought two of the remaining tickets for this three night run at the Sadlers Wells Theatre and wondered if it would live up to the hype surrounding Dave St Pierre as the Canadian Enfant Terrible of contemporary dance capable of taking Michael Clarke's position of most talked about man in modern dance.
On walking into the Sadler Wells where we had seats in the front row of the circle we were greeted by a stage that is empty apart from 24 chairs in a line at the back. Sitting on one of the chairs was a naked man in a blonde wig, shouting "hello" in a high pitched voice and waving at people or making comments about them to get them to say hello to him. This continued as the place filled up and he had most of us smiling by then.
Then suddenly behind us a woman in a red dress was climbing over some seats and the people sitting in them, while simultaneously arguing with another woman. Elsewhere, other people were climbing over seats and arguing. Slowly but surely they all ended up on stage sitting on the chairs at the back.
Then on came Sabrina our host and guide for the evening, to explain that the show 'Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel de Merde' means A Little Tenderness For Crying Out Loud and how that tenderness is really missing from modern society. Oh,and that none of us in the audience should feel safe tonight. She isn't wrong either.
Then the first of the scenes developed with a man standing stock still while a woman threw the mother of all hissy fits including writhing on the floor, banging her fists on the floor and attacking him, after which another couple had a similar scene only this time the woman took a running jump onto the guy. Then, before we knew it the company are all over the theatre having all sorts of fights and scenes.By then, you didn't know where to look.
But this was only just getting going as after another dance scene on stage in which all the men ended up naked apart from blonde wigs (and so did most of the women), suddenly they were all out in the audience climbing over seats and people. The look of shock on some faces when they realised some naked guy was balanced over their heads and showing them his arsehole while making strange noises like a cross between a tellytubby and Anne from Little Britain was priceless!
Almost out of nowhere there was a naked man lying across us with his head in Jet's crotch and thankfully his dick was in the lap of the guy next to me as he squealed and writhed and moved on. We were laughing, if a little nervously, wondering what they would do next. We were among the lucky ones as at least we didn't have our glasses taken off and spat on as one poor guy did. Blimey that was bonkers.
Well there was also be a lot of simulated sex and all sorts of odd stuff that included a massed fake orgasm from the female dancers. It was incredible to see a dozen women having this mutual masturbatory orgasm in a Meg Ryan stylee only far far dirtier and done in a carefully choregraphed manner so they were almost like a single amorphous form of screaming ecstasy.
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How would the blokes top that? Well they all wanked off into their wigs and after that they were (ahem) flinging the spunk around and over the front rows of the stalls. It was gross and at the same time very funny but not as funny as when our hostess Sabrina did her solo routine of sitting on a chocolate cake before stripping her clothes and masturbating with the chocolate cake and then complaining about where the crumbs had gone!
Following this were the naked guys doing a sort of counting scene from one to twelve in French with some very odd and bizarre stuff happening along the way with them dancing together.
At some point they actually managed to put their clothes back on for a while and some truely chaotic dancing ensued, including charging from side to side across the stage and some more conventional ballet moves to accompany some very sensual music while the lights went down low, adding to the tension before more explosions of weirdness. I mean how often do you see a show that has a shoe fight where the competeing teams throw shoes at each opther for about 5 minutes!??
As the show approached its finale, Sabrina gave us another of her increasingly funny and odd little speeches and warned us we still weren't safe which as the entire company now held 2 litre bottles of water in each hand was worrying for the folks in the stalls. They needn't have worried as all the water was spilled on the stage before Sabrina took a solo role to lose her clothes and then slide across the stage as if she was swimming, or a swan. It was brilliant.
She was then joined by the rest of the (now naked again) company for a incredible orgiastic finale of sliding, writhing bodies doing handstands and crabs and all sorts of weird positions among them. It was an incredible climax to the show and as they ended the crowd erupted in applause that went on for ages and allowed them 3 bows to us all. As we left, it seemed like most of the audience had big grins on their faces.
I haven't laughed and smiled at a show as much as I did at this one in years. It was a brilliant night out, totally mad and unconventional but at the same time completely engaging. I understand it's not for everyone but if you are open minded and have no problem with seeing 24 naked young dancers this show is well worth seeing if it comes anywhere near you.
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