Sarah Kendell find's Bounce's adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a spectacularly strange mid-week treat.
What I love most about the London arts scene is that every day of the week, utterly bizarre acts that wouldn't get a look-in anywhere else in the world are filling theatres throughout the city. As one comedian and fellow immigrant recently put it in an interview, “They'd starve to death back home,” but here those more left-field acts that make you go “huh?” are celebrated rather than ridiculed.
So when I heard that Swedish street-dance company Bounce was putting on an interpretation of Ken Kesey's classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, curiosity compelled me to get down to Sadler's Wells' West End offshoot, the Peacock Theatre, and check it out. Of course, just because such weird and wonderful shows exist doesn't necessarily mean they'll be good, but in this case, I'm happy to report that Insane in the Brain lies on the spectacular side of strange.
The wacky hip-hop ballet opens with a haunting masked dance from a chorus of inmates – it leads us immediately into their world, and their talent is instantly impressive. From there, a combination of verbally acted and physically performed scenes introduces us to the lead characters – the nervous Billy, the delusional Miss Martini, the evil Nurse Ratched and of course the determined rebel McMurphy who will lead all the inmates out from under her thumb. Unlike the original, in this case it's not through playing cards and watching baseball that McMurphy encourages his new friends to express themselves, but through a series of manic and mesmerising dance solos that have us bear witness to their rebirth.
Set to a colourful soundtrack and framed by innovative set design and effects, Insane is everything a good modern remake should be. Hip-hop stalwarts like Missy Elliott and Cypress Hill ensure a good level of classic street-infused moves, but it never feels select to a particular genre of music fans. The roaring intensity of System of a Down invokes the painful intensity of patients undergoing electro-shock therapy, and Jenny Widegren's energetic Flashdance-inspired solo to Michael Sembello's '80s classic 'Maniac', although distracting from the development of the plot, is stunningly energetic. Widegren shines in the electro-shock scene, leaping and twirling along a tilted wall suspended by ropes – a thrilling combination of bungee-jumping and high-energy dance.
Although this is mainly a show about the skill and innovation of its principal performers rather than a particularly faithful version of the original allegorical tale on the abuse of authority, there are some genuine moments of emotional connection in the gasp-inducing dance numbers. In the scene where the inmates escape the asylum for the night, the performers make their way into the audience to watch a film which is then projected on stage, making us as an audience feel truly part of this care-free moment.
In equal parts technically stunning, aesthetically brilliant and just plain mad, Insane in the Brain is quite literally unlike anything I've seen before. If you enjoy the eccentric side of London theatre as much as I do, but are concerned by the hit-and-miss factor of such a bizarre premise as a hip-hop remake of a mental hospital tale, don't be – it's a hidden gem that could well make your week.
Insane in the Brain is at the Peacock Theatre until June 27th.
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