Naima Khan reviews Told By An Idiot's attempt at political, devised theatre.
And The Horse You Rode In On by the consistently inventive Told By An Idiot is a crackpot comedy exploring radicalism and premeditated violence. Beginning with an Italian Alfred Hitchcockioicokio, “the master of suspenders”, it happily gives a very basic explanation of the recurring motif ‘Enlightenment through Demonstration’ by means of five different storylines, including a Viennese parody of ‘Are you Being Served?’ in which Mrs Slocombe reads Brecht. Completely weird? Yes. Hilarious? At times.
In scenes inspired by Hitchcock‘s Sabotage, actors on stage mime lots of high-energy action being voiced by actors off stage whose ad-libbing is brilliant. Later, a group of hostages blithely drive their captors to suicide with endless, nonsense singing. While it has the audience chuckling it never explores what drives the characters to extreme acts.
As well as Hitchcock, the Idiots other muses include novels by Gunter Grass and cartoons, particularly that Bugs Bunny episode in which an alien tries to blow up the world. This is clever and at times surprisingly engaging stuff, but the show doesn’t quite satisfy on a humorous level or on the political one. If you know and like ‘Are You Being Served?’ you’re in good company for an hour and a half. Never thirty seconds away from a double entendre, there’s plenty of slapstick and animated gestures to keep you happy and the idea of acts of extremism at Grace Brothers is brilliantly ridiculous. But as the audience is transported from Vienna in 1978 to London in 1936, then Venice in 1697, and Munich in 1972 while the characters engage in various forms of violent protest, I begin to think this is a little pointless. There are too many layers and too many strands and as a result, the effects on the audience are watered down.
Why do the characters in Grace Brothers deliver their catchphrases in German when there’s nothing specifically German about what they are saying? Sure, the inspiration for this has been taken from the methods of the Baader-Meinhoff gang and Grace Brothers is a nice metaphor for class absurdity, but the political ideas behind the actions and the words are never explored – it feels like a wasted opportunity.
Having said that, things don’t really need to be literal or specific, and The Idiots wouldn’t want them to be. But the issues that this show looks at – anarchy and apathy – feel dated, and they’re approached with dated references and old school comedy. And The Horse You Rode In On doesn’t tell the audience what to think, but it leaves us disappointingly unfocused.
And The Horse You Rode In On runs at The Barbican Pit Theatre until 14th May.
Image by Keith Pattinson
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