It's a warm, muggy Friday night and I arrive at Camden's much-loved Roundhouse expecting something spectacular. Artist-in-residence Darren Johnston has been given the enviable (if not petrifying) task of responding to the venue's 'architecture and heritage' with a performance that encompasses, well, everything: live music, DJing, dance, theatre, film, art, design... you name it. That he's been granted a small army of experts to assist him seems only fair - this is one hell of a tall order.
Things get off to a lukewarm start. Entering the space, we're confronted by a huge, four-pronged stage raised above ground to something approaching head-height. Upon it, a wispy, translucent, faintly lit tree - surrounded by large flock of dangling origami birds - acts as a focal point. 'It looks like they've kept the local primary school kids busy,' mutters a nearby sceptic, and I can't help but agree. As we shuffle around in search of a vantage point - unsure of quite what to do with ourselves - a low drone emerges to signal the start of proceedings. Fog pours upwards in comical, faintly Spinal Tap-esque fashion, and before we know it a posse of white-robed figures have formed a circle centre-stage. They stare innocuously into space, much like the audience.
The music - a rousing, if at times slightly OTT blend of orchestral electronica - becomes louder and harsher as scantily clad female dancers begin to work their magic on the stage's four turrets, hopping, skipping, twizzling, writhing and convulsing to almost zero effect, as if trapped in a kind of Sisyphean loop. They're joined, for a while, by beefed up members of the opposite sex, engaging in promiscuous bouts of overly-choreographed fisticuffs (not that this stops one dancer from kicking a monitor speaker onto a transfixed onlooker's head), their constantly pained expressions only bolstering the mounting sense of absurdity. All the while, images flicker over four large screens: blossoming flowers, distorted faces, unfurling letters and an array of sped up satellite vignettes. It's depressingly predictable stuff for something billed as 'a thrilling assault on the senses'.
And so it goes on. A vague sort of narrative emerges - power, rejection, death and judgement are crudely alluded to - but quite how it relates to the venue's heritage is beyond me. By the time things enter 'rave' mode - lights flashing, music blaring, dancers jumping around frenetically - I'm all but lost. Sure, it's slick, professional and occasionally arresting, but I can't help feeling it's trying far too hard - hysterically, at times - to disguise it's own vacuousness. Which was the whole idea, wasn't it?
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