32 RUE VANDENBRANDEN
PEEPING TOM
I'm not sure when I first became aware of the work of Peeping Tom, maybe after 32 Rue Vandenbranden won an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production in 2015 - but maybe even before that.
In any case, I was excited when the show appeared on the schedule at HOME. This was not only a show I wanted to see but exactly the kind of show I hoped the venue would book: the kind of innovative, ground-breaking European dance theatre that it certainly feels as if we don`t get the opportunity to see often in Manchester. I bought tickets immediately.
On 24 May I finally got to see the show, which I had high hopes for. And it exceeded them.
32 Rue Vandenbranden is a cinematic monolith of dance theatre - as much physical theatre as dance - that manages to be distinctive, strange, atmospheric, funny, disturbing, jaw-dropping, and thoroughly entertaining.
Impressively staged - a snowy mountaintop trailer park, innovatively cast, with a diverse soundtrack and sound design and some of the best special effects I have seen. This show has some of the most extreme physicality I have ever witnessed, certainly outside circus or cirque.
Always a sucker for theatrical magic, there are some elements of the show I cannot even account for.
32 Rue Vandenbranden is a surefire entry in my 2016 highlights of the year - I usually pick a top five of favourite shows from each year. But this is a show that will remain one of the highlights of my dance and theatrical life. In fact, as opportunities like this do not come along often (and I saw the excellent Correction by VerTeDance (Czech Republic) on the night of the first of three showings at HOME) I am going again to see it. It has to be done.
And can Peeping Tom please visit again with one of their other shows...
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