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Both silly and cerebral, this peculiar peek into the divergent deliberations of a charismatic queen is entertaining, with the promise of future evolution.Summary
Rating
Good
A statuesque, green-faced drag queen sits astride an office photocopier amidst a primeval forest draped with neckties, conversing with a disembodied voice. It’s the start of just an everyday evening of temporal dissonance and divergent discussion at Battersea Arts Centre.
Hosting Tentacular Spectacular, Oozing Gloop is a highly charismatic being, at once ridiculous, impressive, intellectual and endearing. Tonight the show explores her mental musings on a variety of topics including how to handle a crisis, the Gaia hypothesis, binaries and buttholes. She’s accompanied by her fab sidekick Olympia Bukkakis – a fascinating creature herself – and they make an amusing team. Like a primordial ooze, the conversation ebbs and flows from one tangential subject to another, topics overlap and intersect. Nothing is binary in the Gloop world.
This is a strangely-structured show, but perhaps deliberately divergent, Gloop being an autistic queen. It offers storytelling in several forms, from the literal to the visual to the really very abstract. It juxtaposes the mundane with the cerebral, in the process questioning the idea of ‘normal’ thinking.
Separate episodes of performance suggest contemporary topics that might be in Gloop’s head – ideas of female self-mutilation, intrusive observation and scrutiny, non-binary genders and the crossover between the grotesque and the beautiful. An outstanding highlight is a dance performance by Wet Mess who totally owns the stage. It’s funny, exact, sexy but goddamn weird: just as it should be. Moments between Gloop and Bukkakis really zing. They have a great chemistry, particularly chatting round the water cooler. Other parts of the show are striking but make their point quickly and could be cut back a little to give the whole much more punch, such as the prolonged extraction of internal organs by Bonnie Bakeneko and an extended goblin dance/skin striptease from Shrek666.
There are some really interesting, cerebral notions up for consideration amidst the absurdity. Ideas of normality and the 9 to 5 are juxtaposed with deliberation on our existence in a post-2008 financial crisis world, where focus on economic markets and national insecurity make us turn away from the factual and lean towards superstition. The contention we’re in a neo-feudalist state is articulated well and performed with persuasive charm by Gloop, who at other times is gargling messily at the water cooler. There are also some little details that work subtly to reflect on ideas of normality and temporal discord, particularly the almost throwaway sequence of photocopying photocopies – moments captured, to be reproduced time and again but then discarded. I loved that.
Nicol Parkinson’s sound design is magnificently visceral and aligns perfectly with the random feel of the evening. It ranges from the organic pulsing of the forest to hints of Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ and definitely helps forge a path of understanding through a show that is at times obscure. Meanwhile Jenkin Van Zyl’s set design is atmospheric and layered, but seems to fight a little against the venue. Even though the production tries to use the space interestingly, for example including a scene on the balcony, the action is largely forced into distinct sections and feels rather lined up.
There’s much to enjoy in Tentacular Spectacular, which has pockets of excellence. It’s also delightfully curious to be immersed in such a divergent, unfamiliar world. But the show does feel at the moment like it’s still shaping up and is perhaps overstretching its content a little. I’m interested to see what form it evolves into.
Created by Oozing Gloop
Set Design by: Jenkin Van Zyl
Sound Design by: Nicol Parkinson
Produced by: Artsadmin
Tentacular Spectacular runs at Battersea Arts Centre until Saturday 17 June. Further information and bookings can be found here.
