PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Bristol Old Vic Basement (Mon 8-Fri 12 Nov)

THEATRE “Born in the Bayou, die in the Bayou,” mutters one of the sepia-toned prophets in this hugely attractive and malevolently subversive social satire.

The decrepit Bayou Mansions, you see, represent the hopelessly destitute, overpopulated underbelly of your city, any city – where the criminals, racists, deadbeats, drunks, perverts and pan-handlers live cheek-by-jowl, ever fearful of the swarming masses of feral child gangs who run amok when darkness falls. “We Chubb the locks and swallow the keys,” observes one resident.

Anyone lucky enough to catch award-winning theatre company 1927’s 2007 show ‘The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’ will know what they’re capable of: a visual style that veers from graphic novel noir to Keaton slapstick, Dickensian squalor and Tim Burtonesque flights of fairyale fantasy. The actors perform against a series of screens and projections interacting (with impressive, militarily drilled timing) with their animated worlds; dripping taps, crawling cockroaches and those juvenile mobs a malignant ever-presence.

Only when the festering decay and rioting begins to creep into the verdant parks, “tourist honeypots” and affluent corners of town, does the city’s mayor decide to act, luring the children away, Pied Piper-style, with the promise of hyper-addictive, heavily sedative gumdrops.

Will the Bayou tenants see their offspring safely returned? Do they care? And will the wonderfully droll, reclusive caretaker manage to save the daughter of arts and craft-loving Agnes Eaves, who’s brought a ray of light to the place ever since she arrived?

‘The Animals and Children…’ is a surprisingly dense, politically-minded affair once you’ve kicked off the cinematic topsoil and isn’t afraid to spike a happy ending despite its audience. On the whole, the oil slick of black comedy and sight gags work handsomely well, most notably in the skewering of familiar modern irritants – ludicrously inflated train ticket prices, endless answerphones trilling ‘Greensleeves’, a 10-hour wait in A&E and a catastrophe helpline only open on bank holidays – but the play’s real success, perhaps, is in its fatalistic suggestion that there just might not be a way out. “Born in the Bayou…” indeed. (Joe Spurgeon)

Copyright Joe Spurgeon 2011