Dancing Brick are a company that have done well at the Fringe over the years. From their pre-formation when co-founder Thomas Eccleshare was astounding audiences as Banquo in a physical version of Macbeth in 2005, and their first Fringe show under the banner of Dancing Brick in 2006, theyve received critical praise for their particular brand of immersive theatre.So here they are again at the Fringe with their show 6.0, a tale that imagines post-global warming future in which there is no ice. A problem that the greatest ice dancers the world has ever seen address by doing their routine on a wooden floor. And before you start thinking thats a bit of an absurd idea do ice machines not work? absurd is the style of this brand of comedy. Heap Krusiak (Thomas Eccleshare) and Pebble Adverati (Valentina Ceschi) mix movement with audience interaction and a wonderful economy of words to create a quite unique experience. There are clear influences of their Jacque Lecoq training, even down to the ultimate mask, the clowns red nose. There are brave periods of silence, and whilst that has been used to great effect in their previous work, this is a funnier piece and it makes the peaks and troughs of comedy to physical theatre pretty steep mountains to climb. Ive also seen what Eccleshare is capable of, and putting him in a pair of ice skates on a wooden floor hampers his gracefulness, like an opera singer chewing gum. But when its funny, its intensely funny, with ideas employed that Ive never seen used elsewhere.But those concerns aside, in a programme stuffed with student impro comedy, its still a brilliantly inventive piece that gives audiences something original to look at.
