Mad about the poise
Greeny and Stevo have been best friends since a disadvantaged, workingclass childhood, when both were misfits together at school in Sheffield and stuck by one another through everything life threw at them. Including the school bully, whose picking on Greeny saw the more unpredictable Stevo march into class and break the kid’s nose with one punch.
Fast forward to early adulthood, and not fitting in made then both natural latter-day punk rockers from the moment they first heard the Sex Pistols, taking part in earnest anti-fascist action soundtracked by Dead Kennedy’s serrated Nazi Punks F*** Off, and living in squats.
Nowadays, however, they hate each other, and it’s all down to the internet; specifically, the way that online life has fragmented the previously uniform idea of what reacting against the establishment involves.
As formerly large tribes split into diverse subgroups, the demographic who once might have simply called themselves punks has fractured, with some falling to the far political left and others to the furthest reaches of the right, all in the name of rejecting orthodoxy.
From such tightly entwined original perspectives, Greeny has now embraced the activist’s creed of what can be termed political correctness, while Stevo channels his downtrodden ordinariness and clear lack of the privilege he is always earnestly told he has in abundance by embracing the populist creed of the alt-right.
Writer Matthew Greenhough (a key figure in Wound Up Theatre, whose previous Fringe hit was Bismillah! An ISIS Tragicomedy) performs both characters in interlocking first-person scenes, a source of energy and sensitivity, while musician Steven Wright plays jazz adaptations of the punk classics mentioned alongside.
Ultimately, it’s a work which rejects easy stereotypes or judgments to recognise the sense of social disenfranchisement which creates both worldviews, and it’s all the bolder for it.
Discovered in Nairobi by an Italian circus impresario, the performers in The Black Blues Brothers have gone from a small community project to performing in 200 cities around the world in just five years.
Their showmanship and polish may have been tagged on during that time, but it’s clear their acrobatic skill has been there since childhood. The fearlessness in their tumbles and hand balances, the ease with which they fly and flip into the air, then plunge to the floor speaks of years of focussed training and huge amounts of trust.
Every circus show needs a theme these days, and no prizes for guessing what The Black Blues Brothers was inspired by. Set in a stylish Art Deco hotel, where the men are staff members, the radio on the bar becomes the focus, as one by one tracks from the 1980s film play out.
Stripping off their sharp black jackets and shirts (with perhaps a little too much swagger – it all gets a bit Chippendales for a moment) they get down to business. A routine with a skipping rope finds them bouncing on the floor with their feet, hands and even bottoms; proving their incredible bendiness, they limbo-dance under a flame-lit pole; and climbing up a five-chair stack they deliver a rocksteady handstand at the top. Everything looks effortless.
A pretend duffing up of the smallest guy, and mild pretend bullying throughout, feels unnecessary and out of step with the show’s mood. Because although these five Kenyans may not actually be brothers, their bond is clearly as close, and it’s this – not the mock arguments – that take them into our hearts.