Idiot Child throws everything into this show, quite literally: glitter, mojitos, frazzles and mini chedders, balloons, badges, sweets, music, stories, nudity and endless energy. This was a hugely entertaining, if a little odd, piece about three siblings who have been abandoned by their parents. Billed as a piece about fears and anxiety, I’m not sure it lives up to that description. If you choose to go because you live with fears and anxiety and are hoping to perhaps learn something, you won’t.
All three performers are talented and engaging and, at times, the show is laugh out loud funny
This is more an anarchic story about three characters – Heron, Magpie and Feral Pigeon - who have learned to navigate the world after abandonment. All three performers are talented and engaging and, at times, the show is laugh out loud funny. I particularly liked the line, ‘I have never been touched in the swimsuit area’ and the incredibly funny story about Teddy, the very small pony.
As an audience, we are all participants in ‘Fear Camp’. The show opens with the performers asking each member of the audience to tell them about their fears. All around me I heard people confessing to real fears – flying, heights, claustrophobia, rats and from this, I would assume that the audience had come to this show with a genuine interest in the subject. That being said, if you are selling your show on understanding fear and anxiety, then pulling audience members into onstage participation should really be a big no no. The guy pulled up onstage certainly didn’t want to be there.
I once took a friend with anxiety of audience participation to a show that promised in the marketing blurb to be an exploration of agoraphobia and anxiety; that person got picked on and made to participate in the show. Needless to say they have never forgiven me. I would suggest that What If the Plane Falls Out of the Sky needs to re write its blurb.
But, if you forget that you are hoping to learn something about living with anxiety, then this quirky show is certainly entertaining. It moves through physical comedy, dark black humour and at times is moving and hard hitting; examining how constant abuse can not only undermine you, but break you as a person. It could do with a little cutting. It was billed as an hour but ran at about one hour thirty, but their energy kept the audience engaged until the end. I would recommend joining Idiot Child in Calm Down Corner, sipping on your mojito and buckling up for the bizarre ride.
