World of Wrong (Tour – Salford)

The Two Wrongies (Avis Cockbill and Janine Fletcher) encourage their audience to question things and look at life from a different perspective. As part of the process they use anecdotes from their personal lives, dance skills and filmed inserts. But the concept is so wide and the manner of presentation so extreme it is hard to imagine a single audience that could find all aspects of the show entertaining.

The show opens and closes with almost conventional dance routines. To pastoral backing music the couple use found objects to represent babies and partners and the gestation of a child and eventual separation. In-between, however, are sketches and routines that are subversive and challenging but also disturbing and even distasteful.

The duo finds humour in the logical extension of a situation. A couple of synchronised swimmers forget their costumes and, with a professionalism that borders on naivety, go on to give a display that is almost gynaecological. But this same approach can, unintentionally, take the audience to darker, even unpleasant, ideas. An extremely graphic mime of the sex act complete with grunted ‘endearments’ gives the impression that, to an outside observer, consensual sex could be seen as having violent elements.

At times The Wrongies are content to shock rather than provoke. A dance routine with them dressed as male and female genitalia also features a used tampax. But at least this routine has humorous elements – the penis dozes off at the end of the dance. The Shock! Horror! approach can undermine more serious points. A filmed insert of Cockbill renting out Avis as a live blow-up doll might be a comment on the objectification of women but is so crude you just want to get the image out of your mind rather than think about the principle.

The World of Wrong has something to offend everyone and will certainly surprise unsuspecting audiences who come along hoping for straightforward comedy.
 
– Dave Cunningham