One and the Other

A show put together and performed by a couple of old troupers.  They might prefer ‘middle-aged’, but they shouldn’t mind ‘old’ since that’s the powerful if underlying ‘message’ of this show.  ‘Old’ maybe, but still at it – still lithe, skilled, funny and fierce. 

Debra Batton is – at the risk of a restricting classification – an acrobat/tumbler, and Sue Broadway is a juggler/magician, but both are comediennes too.  Or clowns, if you like.  They enter via a recessed entrance that looks exactly like the entrance to a circus ring – and indeed these two performers met at Circus Oz and Sue Broadway was one of its founders.  That’s just a bit of their provenance and they’re rightly proud of it.

On a platform above, sits their musical director and musician Teresa Blake (who used to be an acrobat too!) arrayed in a shiny, light bouncing costume and equipped with all manner of instruments and electronics.  Ms Blake supplies a most impressive, intricate soundtrack throughout the show. mixing pre-recorded and live music. 

When the show begins, it seems a variation on the tradition of the White Clown (Ms Broadway) and Auguste (Ms Batton) with Ms Broadway elegant and a little icy, and Ms Batton, in red trousers, pretending to be the clumsy but eager-to-please helper.  The trope continues into a change of costume and an afternoon tea party involving a costume change, a wardrobe malfunction, some astonishing juggling and much smearing of cream by each woman on the other.  More of this double act stuff would be a good idea, but the show then settles into individual acts of magic, juggling and acrobatics, during which Voice Over narration tells us some of Ms Broadway’s and Ms Batton’s history in Life and the Show Business. 

But the show does begin to wear just a little thin at about the hour mark.  After all, in a circus, there’d be other tricks and feats, and here Ms Batton and Ms Broadway must carry the burden of a whole show.  In a final section, there’s the attempt to connect the show to #MeToo and some slightly defensive stuff about why neither has had children.  Had the question of children occurred to us?  At the end, both women perform their different skills while cursing various past lovers (?) with a vehement ‘F**k you, John!’ – or whoever – and it feels tacked on.  Both of these performers are very talented, funny, intriguing, charming and immensely likeable, but unfortunately their show relies a little too much on nostalgia and doesn’t quite come off.

Michael Brindley