The Sabre Dance is rattling the speakers in what used to be a lecture room for veterinary students and two men, dressed up as mice, are chasing each other hither and yon.
If I say the two men are Jon Haynes and David Woods (aka Ridiculusmus) then that image will seem reassuringly par for their course. That course veers left-field into the realms of absurdity, into atrocious panto-punning, before cramming in mouthfuls of biscuits and spouting a surprising number of astute comments on our age.
There is not a plot, really: more a cat’s-cradle of overlapping themes: genocide is one – pest control is out to eradicate the mice, because the owner wants his venue back so as an arts activist can stage his immersive-headphone-experimental experience for Fringe-goers. I lost count of how many different characters Haynes and Woods slipped in and out of at the drop of an accent, the tone of a voice. There are other droppings … pesky mice.
These antics will not be to everybody’s taste, or sense of humour. But do not be fooled by the hand-knitted look of the comedy (or the costumes). What plagues the world is hate propaganda, the politics of eradication – how do you get rid of poverty? – and the appalling amount of bad experimental theatre-making that chases its own tail.
Ridiculusmus, bless ’em, chase each other’s tales, producing comedy mayhem full of astute observations and wicked spoofery.
