Tina and Ken tell the audience the story of their showbiz journey in Underbelly, Bristo Square. If you’ve been to that venue, you’ll know the purple tent is quite large compared to many of the cramped rooms in the back of pubs that performers have to deal with. Even so, I’ve rarely seen a pair use all of the space so effectively - climbing up ropes, dangling from the ceiling, entwining in mid-air in tense, elegant acrobatics, and returning to their microphones to continue their story.
The show never become a ‘serious’; every well-choreographed routine aims more for comic rather than graceful. Tina and Ken’s facial expressions tell as many jokes as their narration itself; they are a set of incredibly talented performers. After a bitter dispute with Tina, Ken begins to woo a lady in the audience, climbing up a rope to fetch her roses and, as he returns down the rope, he holds several poses that baffle and amaze the audience.
You will see juggling like you have never seen before, the bottles fluidly flying between the two performers as smoothly as an aerobatic cat’s cradle, perfectly synchronised. The way Tina handles hula hoops as if they were extra limbs makes your head spin and the pair somehow have the strength of steel and flexibility of elastic, allowing them to spin, entwine, and balance the way they do suspended from a single trapeze.
It’s amazing to watch, with the music setting the mood and the old coupley jokes pulling plenty of laughs from the audience.
