If theatre holds the mirror up to nature then this is the most perfect example of a performance I have ever experienced. I say experienced not seen as the only way to describe The Oh Fuck Moment is as an experience; a religious experience in the celebratory church of fuck ups.
We gather outside the entrance to the room where the event takes place, and are invited in to take a cup of tea and sit around a large office table – boardroom meeting style. Everyone has a post-it note and pencil in front of them, props that instantly set off ‘audience participation’ alarm bells. But this isn’t a theatrical experience like other immersive and participatory shows might be, it’s gentle and eases you into its world of grim tales of irrevocable mistakes involving hockey sticks and planes.
The personas adopted by Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe are friendly, welcoming and comforting. Criss-crossing the border between performing and performing the self they put audience members at ease with sharing their secrets and expertly engage us all in this conversation, this celebration, of human life and those moments when we fuck it up.
The text of the performance is beautifully constructed with content, tone and rhythm matching each other perfectly. There are comical quick-fire lists of the warning signs we should have made (my personal favourite “don’t photocopy the stairs”) counterbalanced with heart-wrenching accounts of the larger oh fuck moments in life; when somebody dies and you miss their last breath by moments or when you make a simple mistake resulting in the crashing of a plane.
As the very best stories should be these are ones that we all can relate to, not necessarily because we’ve all been there but because they touch on emotions we’ve all felt. The setting round the table is entirely apt, eye contact cannot be avoided and the reactions of fellow audience members can be shared. Everything that is normally hated about interactive theatrical experiences is carried out with such care I’m not sure we would even have shied away from recounting our whole life histories.
The Oh Fuck Moment is highly well crafted, beautifully and engagingly performed and espouses a life philosophy that we all should live by. In my opinion you’ll have fucked up if you miss it.
