Bush Bazaar is overwhelming to say the least and whether that's a good thing or not depends on you.
Bush Theatre is almost dripping with performance tonight and as much as the team behind this bazaar might envisage audiences stumbling across performances and discovering new talent, it doesn't quite work out that way.
Loose change and programme in hand, I'm passed by women in blood spattered aprons and a guy carrying a tray of envelops stuffed with meat. That's the show I want to see, I think. Turns out this overwhelming evening of short shows put together by Theatre Delicatessen and Bush Theatre is a little harder to timetable than I'd imagined and becomes a crash course in prioritising and marketing.
That unwitting advert for Meat by Erica Miller, Moi Tran and Joe Von Malachowski lures me in but so does a corporate-looking woman handing me her business card and telling me about something called Trust Fund. She's standing next to a person in a flowing skirt who claims to live on a roundabout and is trying to convince me to come to the garden at 7.30 or 8.30 to hear her plea. If I stayed long enough I could have seen it all. But after two hours I'm done and I definitely regret not prioritising Meat.
Instead I go to Trust Fund by The Lab Collective which has an interesting concept at its heart – children and their futures as a commodity for the present – but is poorly executed. The immersive show prioritises stylistics and requires a more intelligent script and better improvisational skills to pull the gathered audience into the performance. It presents us with something disturbing but not lingering.
Similarly, Roundabout by Hobo is a show full of heart that is completely endearing, often funny and for the most part absorbing. But again, it deals with an interesting concept – the fate of asylum seekers - with a very blunt, if highly creative, look at ambiguous moral ground. That said, I will be on the look out for further shows from Hobo.
And maybe from Natterjack too. Their show, The Purification Ritual of the Sacred Nymphs of Natterjack has water and its misuse at its centre but conveys its message as though it's a kids show. It's funny, I like it, but would I pay for it?
That's the question posed by the format of Bush Bazaar which gives you the chance to pay more for the shows you like. It suits a certain personality. You've got to be up for taking a chance and put in some work. Be a slave to advertising for a few hours and go with your instincts. You may as well put aside a whole evening to get everything you can from this hit and miss market of theatre for the taking. 
Bush Bazaar runs at Bush Theatre until 18th August
More on Spoonfed
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at National Theatre
Eastern Electrics Festival The Review
Philadelphia, Here I Come! at Donmar Warehouse
Add an event
Scoping Out London’s Coolest Historic Bingo Halls
London’s bingo halls were once a bustling part of many of the city’s communities, but as...