Tandem is a lovely piece of interactive circus. Working their way around an abbreviated game board, performers Tarah Carey, Tim Rutty and Eleanor Beveridge take most of their direction from a large foam dice thrown by random members of the audience. Each roll takes them along from one acrobatic scene to the next.
The show isn’t so much “Choose your own Adventure” as it is a delightful mashup love letter to video games, board games, and game shows. Tarah, Tim, and Eleanor embrace this series of games with such a wonderful sense of play that it’s impossible not to be entertained by the skill on display and fun they’re having.
Audience interaction can be risky, but while their various routines never approached the extreme end of death-defying, thankfully the audience involvement was restricted solely to dice throwing (which even then had something messing it up), so our trio kept good control of the flow of the show.
Some circus can tend too far into spectacle, which can leave an audience removed, admiring the work instead of emotionally engaging with it. If anything, Tandem succeeds best in Tarah, Tim, and Eleanor’s charisma and their ability to concentrate on the physical task at hand, while still engaging the crowd with impeccable comic timing. A nice piece of performance art that deserved the applause it got.
Tandem
Chapel Off Chapel, 12 Little Chapel Street, Prahran
Performance: Wednesday 2 May 2018
Season continues to 6 May 2018
Information and Bookings: www.gravitydolls.com
Image: Tarah Carey, Tim Rutty and Eleanor Beveridge – photo by 3 Fates Media
Review: David Collins