Review: Pied Piper, Battersea Arts Centre

Review: Pied Piper, Battersea Arts Centre

Summary

Rating

100

Unmissable!

A gobsmackingly awesome affirmation that art and music are for all, and that with solidarity in beats the system can be beat.

If the National Theatre crowd were impressed by Bertie Carvel’s athletic vowel sounds at Pygmalion recently, they really need to get themselves out of the mainstream and down to Battersea Arts Centre to marvel at the utterly spectacular achievements of Conrad Murray and the BAC Beatbox Academy in Pied Piper! This awesome, upbeat production is literally gobsmacking.

It’s based on the age-old story of how the town of Hamlyn, ruled by a corrupt mayor, is overrun by rats. A Pied Piper is employed to remove the rodents using his magical musical skills, but when the mayor fails to pay, he lures the children of the town away as well, to get revenge.

I can tell you now, you have never seen – or heard! – this familiar story performed as remarkably as it is here, with the entire show driven by incredible beatboxing across a cast of incredibly talented individuals. The whole auditorium pulses with visceral, throbbing music as the superb soundscape of complex, layered noises is intricately crafted, all entirely through oral means. Additionally, when you’re not reminding yourself that the exciting and textured percussion, rhythm, sound effects and song are all generated only by the bodies of the performers (had to pinch myself a few times!), you will also find that the wider production is brilliantly playful, cheeky fun for the whole family.

This talented team are not only outstanding beatboxers, but quirky, dynamic performers who bring shedloads of energy and character to the stage. They are up and down stairs, in tableaux, dancing, occasionally performing when limited by one hand holding a mic – it’s massively varied and exhausting to watch! There are some incredible voices, particularly Kate Donnachie and Aziza Amira Brown, but it’s the careful combination of performance sounds and techniques from the ensemble that makes the whole so astonishing. The performers work seamlessly together, but then even manage to make a space for a community cast of students from the Beatbox Academy to participate, which is highly enjoyable and impressive.

Pied Piper is a show that transforms the shape of what theatre can be, offering an enormous generosity of spirit and welcome. Beatboxing is a levelling artform – it uses no language, so speaks with universal meaning, and this underscores the inherent social messaging of the production. The show could easily be happy to leave spectators gaping open-mouthed at the team’s beatboxing skills. Instead, it gifts the audience the power to create too with Murray, as the Piper, in a fabulously oversized, rainbow-tagged fur coat, introducing us to the basic sonic elements and then encouraging the whole auditorium to join in and add to the soundscape. It’s incredible fun and wholly effective, allowing people to break inhibitions in a safe space, find their voice and step on the path to becoming artists themselves.

This is a show with hidden depths beneath the entertainment. Timely themes are raised of inequality, of institutional greed and deceit, and of child labour. Some tabloid views denigrating the working classes are clearly called out; one answer as to what to do with the ‘rats’ being to put them all into prisons, which is a social non-solution to crime, that causes much anguish today. But we are also shown the importance of friendship over finance, the potency of community solidarity and empowerment of the individual voice through art. There are also rat gloves with glowing eyes, which are really cool!

Pied Piper is a truly inspirational, dynamic and uplifting production that will have you bopping in your seat (then spraying over everyone on the bus going home, as you master your beats like the best of them). Don’t miss it!

---

Written, composed & musically directed by: Conrad Murray
Concept & story co-created by: Conrad Murray & Lara Taylor
Co-Directed by: Conrad Murray & Ria Parry
Production Manager: Jack Boissieux
Movement Director by: Gavin Maxwell
Dramaturgy by: Lisa Goldman
Set & Lighting Design by: Ben Pacey
Costume Design by: Erin Guan
Sound Design by: Ed Clark
Sound Engineer: Thomas Wasley
Produced by: Siobhán McGrath with Battersea Arts Centre, Beatbox Academy & rODIUM

Piped Piper will be playing at Southbank Centre 31 May – 2 June, further information and bookings available here.