One and the Other

The work of Batton & Broadway is informed by numerous years of experience in cabaret, circus, dance and physical theatre. This production has an extremely subversive edge with a bittersweet flavour. The performers share thoughts and experiences related to their long careers as entertainers, which have clearly had both high and low moments.

Batton and Broadway are at their best when they are showing off their talent and ability to perform acrobatic stunts, and when they are playfully undermining audience expectations. Their interest in exploring the abject, especially in relation to consuming food and drink or recollections of the past, renders the performance simultaneously confronting and amusing. This also gives their clowning a rather strange and unusual quality. 

The performance has a live musical accompaniment provided by the extremely talented Teresa Blake. Using a variety of instruments, Blake creates a range of sometimes eerie, sometimes melancholic sounds that complement the performance and capture its experimental nature. Other more gleeful sounds highlight the many facetious moments in the show.

The show is intended as a celebration of older artists, however, the balance between frivolity and cynical perspectives could be more finely tuned so that the audience is not left feeling too alienated or jaded. This lively show has a range of surprising elements that have the potential to both delight and disturb.

Patricia Di Risio