Naima Khan reviews 100% London, the one hundred-strong Rimini Protokoll show, as part of London International Festival of Theatre
Flicking through the programme, pages and pages that detail small facts about the cast of 100 people in 100% London, it's irritatingly boring how little these facts mean. You play the drums? Great. You''re bringing along an ornament shaped like an elephant? Fantastic. Why would anyone care? It comes as a surprise to me that by the end of the show, I really do.
The show brings 100 Londoners to the stage to tell us something about the people who vanish behind the statistics that are so often used as a way to understand the city. In the first half of the show they succeed beyond expectation. They paint a picture of funny, sweet, cheeky, caring and apathetic people and convert the cynic in me. They prove that the show's imperfections are the most interesting thing about it. But as they plough on in their attempts to invalidate the questionnaire format we've come to rely on, they make the same point too many times.
As the first participant reads from an auto-cue, stumbles over his lines and takes a few too many pauses. he reminds us that we're here to see people not performers. This isn't the slickest of shows, nor should it be. Instead we take the time to listen to what he has to say regardless of his performing capabilities and his humanity wins through. His slow-burning humour and his smile are worth appreciating and he proves it in 2 minutes of stage time. Any more and we'd be flagging.
Similarly, as the rest of the cast (all 99 of them) tell us who they are and present their 'special objects', one half of me thinks, who would care about this? Who is this for? A kid called Beckett stands out, he's brought along a home-made “egg clarinet”.
The other half thinks, nobody should have to prove how relevant they are. They're relevant because they're people and those irritating facts in the programme do indeed serve a purpose, I'm eventually convinced. They tell us what people value about themselves and that shouldn't be ignored. Made up of seemingly unremarkable people, London is quite fascinating.
As the show progresses, it is the opinions that emerge that are most interesting. They make those tick boxes the show seeks to embody so useless. But the way these opinions are presented is the shows downfall. As the cast pose questions and answer yes or no and select 1 to 5, it mimics a rudimentary questionnaire to a point of redundancy.
But is interesting to see the ambiguities and ambivalences of the cast willingly ignored. It's the individual stories and the imperfections that make the biggest impression. It's the woman who thought she could change the world by importing cannabis from Afghanistan, it's the girl who broke the chain because she didn't know anyone who could fulfil the statistical criteria. It's little Beckett and his bloody egg clarinet and wondering what kind of a London he'll grow up in.
100% London runs at Hackney Empire as part of LIFT until 1st July
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