As we wait for the show to start we’re treated to the sound of Dean Martin singing ‘That’s Amore’. Knot is a love story – but one whose Facebook relationship status might read ‘it’s complicated’. Nikki (Rummer) and JD (Broussé) arrive on stage and announce themselves. They’re dressed in baggy, neutral coloured rehearsal wear. They […]

We take our seats in Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre and the lights go down, only for a spotlight to pick out one of the audience seated in the front row. It’s Improbable’s Phelim McDermott (writer/director), and he starts the show in a very informal manner, chatting to his neighbour in the next seat and telling […]

Contemporary circus, like dance before it, was once perched precariously on the outer edges of the performing arts scene – insiders headed to Circus Space or Circomedia to get their fix; outsiders thought themselves daring for going to see Cirque du Soleil whenever they visited (and every time that company was reviewed in its early […]

Nearly Human is Perhaps Contraption’s first venture into theatre after having worked for nearly a decade as musicians. In Nearly Human, the band explores the infinite complexity of the universe with various brass instruments, drums, a guitar and a xylophone (used by Catherine Ring to deliver a cracking solo); to question where one thing ends […]

I Run tells the story of a man grieving for his dead daughter, and his discovery of running as a coping mechanism. Standing on a treadmill facing the audience, dressed in running gear, flanked by two fluorescent skylights that cover him in a stark and clinical light, the bereaved father begins to run. A small […]