Rannel Theatre Company
Norwich Playhouse

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 1st October 2010

Flhip-Flhop

Hip-hop, street dance, rap, sampling and comedy theatre are acquired tastes. Rannel Theatre Company brought them to Norwich and a mixed-aged audience lapped them up and wanted more.

They rocked. They brought a refreshingly new and energetic take on a classic sketch that was unique and modern, yet also just good old-fashioned fun.

Two madcap decorators, young, very contemporary, painting walls but interfering with equipment and things they chanced upon in the apartment, mixing music, dance routines and comedy gags, in a gleeful romp across the absurd, at times surreal edges of life today.

The beatbox sounds and rhythms, the MC-rapping from both real music and from inside their crazy heads was the driving undercurrent. The superb timing and hilarious content of the physical movement was the power that hurtled the romp along.

Ninety minutes of fun took a basic comic scenario with phone messages, mishaps and clowning on the way, and held the crowd, making it special by using that clever comedic technique of pathos, even tears, behind the jollity, that was quite moving.

A triumph of multi-media live arts on stage, and a real antidote to a wet, dreary night.