Peepshow Underbelly Festival
Lordy lord, please reincarnate me in sparkly hotpants, hoisted high above my sexy castmates, making levitation look easy and backwards bending look fun. I am irrationally sure (so, not sure at all) that the seven person crew of Circa’s Peepshow – at London’s Underbelly Festival through 18th August – finish their sensual and edgy show and promptly go backstage to have a massive group shag. My companion at the show last night leaned over to whisper that to me halfway through, so, it’s not just me.
Just good friends standing on each other’s shoulders – Peepshow Underbelly Festival
Peepshow is a modern dance/circus show that teases you with voyeuristic expectations but occasionally makes you feel like you are watching a breakdown, manifested physically. How to explain… okay: imagine getting too invested in a sex robot who then has dying batteries. We have all been there, right? The cast of four men and three women move, very gracefully indeed, but occasionally stop, freeze, jerk, swing to the left. No strobe lights here, but you know your investment in these players is on when those posed stuttersteps that turn into body movements that must be seen to be imagined make you think of these humans as both real and unreal. Stylish convulsions lead to graceful falls then more climbing upon each other, hands upon feet upon hands.
Peepshow at the Underbelly Festival
Tension is the theme. Actors don’t smile and move quickly into their movements, they crouch under the lights, either robotic or feral, and tensely jerk away from your eyes as they twtch, dance or swing each other around. Some of the feats of derring do are almost desperately forced from their muscles, their gloriously toned muscles. The troupe of seven start off wearing black and white, like slinky waiters, and end up in those sparkly hotpants and occasionally fur coats, like 70s soft porn done by replicants, and brought to acrobatic heights. And much like vintage cabaret, not everything always goes perfectly, but you are cheering these seven amazing performers along.
With throbbing music and sexy moments, Peepshow is definitely worth a look – another great offering in the stripey Spiegeltent from the Underbelly Festival.
Complete Underbelly Festival Line Up
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A former ABC National, Dallas and Atlanta radio personality, Martina O'Boyle is now making movies and covering culture in London, Dublin, and as far in Europe as the cheapie flights will take her, for Pop Culture Beast.