Feel About Your Body (Bristol Old Vic Studio)
New Art Club have struck gold with their latest spectacle, Feel About Your Body. The plot-less show is less like a play of any sort and more reflects having a hoot with two of your wisest – and yet, your most ridiculous – friends.
After a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe, enigmatic duo Tom Roden and Pete Shenton are touring the country, putting on a metrical exhibition of dance and song. After 12 years of dance training, the pair have developed their own genre of comedy. Using physical techniques, their intelligence and wit seeps through the (sometimes vulgar) masquerade to create a hilarious, dynamic and touching showcase.
Interwoven with personal anecdotes, from a side-splitting account of having an itchy bottom in the night, to a moving, comical story about what not to do during a heart attack, the show affects almost every single one of the audience’s emotions. From cringe-worthy yet admirable nudity, to a catchy song and dance routine about a shed, there isn’t a dull moment in the performance. Audience participation is key and the pair even has some of the crowd up on stage to participate in their routines.
Amongst the silliness and frivolity, the show harbours an overarching theme: body image. At the beginning of the experience the audience are told to rate their bodies, with ten being the best and one being the worst. The majority of the audience, as expected, place themselves somewhere between a three and a seven; and throughout the performance the lively commentators pursuade the audience re-evaluate their initial judgements.
This brings to the show a stand-up element, which has not previously existed in their routines. Roden does a great job of telling riotous comic tales yet holding together the "straight-man" persona, as Shenton prances around setting up the next laugh and, at one point, even strips down to his birthday suit.
However, Shenton doesn’t remain the clown throughout the entire show, and once his clothes are back on he settles into telling the audience a gripping story about his near-death experience. The comedy becomes slightly difficult to recover after this poignant moment, but Shenton does a good job of throwing in a gag or two to lighten the mood.
The show concludes with an uplifting message and the audience are asked once again to rate their bodies. The life-affirming piece left the spectators feeling completely heartened and, as demonstrated by an extremely bashful audience-member, her body-confidence rocketed from a 6 to a 10 in no time!
– Hannah Sweetnam
