Bryony Kimmings: 7 Day Drunk ¦ Photo: Liquid Photo

Bryony Kimmings: 7 Day Drunk

Bryony Kimmings: 7 Day Drunk ¦ Photo: Liquid Photo

Bryony Kimmings undertook a week-long experiment to gather material for her new performance: the aim was to keep herself intoxicated for seven days to see what would happen. The result is an anarchic 80s-tinged live art bonanza combining a multitude of messy stories, dances and songs – although one would expect nothing less.

What is most appealing about Bryony’s work is her honesty – she presents her failings without any hesitation to confront those dirty and embarrassing pitfalls that surround drinking culture – especially her own – but these are also embraced and used to unify us inside the event of it. There is no sitting in the dark, and anyone with voyeuristic tendencies should stay away as we are all engulfed in the world of Kimmings, where madness lurks and you may find yourself getting very close to the person sat next to you.

The performance is punctuated with documentary footage from her week of binging, giving the spectator an inside look into her creative processes and fluctuating emotional states, and from this comes one of most engaging questions of the whole performance: can alcohol enhance an artist’s creativity? In Bryony’s case unicorns, bubbles, rave dances, and rainbows helmets are fragments that grace the stage, but there is no slowing down or time for reflection – Bryony’s own boredom-induced ‘human waterfall’, while amusing, does not allow the spectator to dive any deeper into the mixed emotions of the girl we were witnessing on film.

Bryony Kimmings really is unique, as her work blends so many forms – theatre, live art, cabaret – and although 7 Day Drunk doesn’t wrap everything up in a pretty red ribbon, as some would hope, it really doesn’t need to. Bryony doesn’t lecture on the rights and wrongs of drinking but simply explores her own relationship with alcohol in her own special way.

www.bryonykimmings.com