BLAM! (Blackpool Grand)

Anyone who has ever worked in an office will know the feeling. It’s three in the afternoon and the clock seems to be running backwards, the boss is on your case and you wish with all your heart that you could be somewhere else.

So maybe you surreptitiously scan your Facebook account, chat about your hols or simply daydream about winning the lottery, right?

Wrong! In the madcap world of BLAM!, you’re more likely to blast a colleague into oblivion with…. a stapler, turn pencils into a lethal weapon. Or maybe fall in love with the water cooler. Because in BLAM!-land, all is possible.

Danish theatre company Neander’s four-man cast – Kristjan Ingimarsson, Hannes Por Egilsson, Didier Oberle and Eos Karlsson – work their socks off in a tightly-choreographed non-stop feast of visual theatre that owes more to Jacques Tati and Laurel and Hardy than it does to the end of the pier.

No real words are ever spoken (think grunts, a la the Minions) as the quartet use mime, acrobatics, modern dance and slapstick to create an unbelieveably believable world that will have movie buffs salivating. There is a long list of homages to film blockbusters and styles, from spaghetti western to martial arts, ET to superheroes.

Every part of the innovative and ultra-versatile set is put to good use as the guys fly through the air, tumble, leap, crash and fall and even turn the overhead strip lights into a trapeze. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss another visual delight.

This show is unlike anything Blackpool has ever seen before – and please don’t read that as a criticism. It is a bold step by the Grand and LeftCoast to bring it to such a traditional setting, and the audience took a few minutes to cotton onto BLAM!‘s unique style.

But once they were up to speed, the atmosphere was electric – and the cast was greeted with rapturous applause at the end of the 70 minute, interval-free, performance.

These are the show’s only UK appearances this year, so catch it while you can. All I can say is: Wham BLAM! Thank you, Grand.

BLAM! is at the Blackpool Grand until 31 August.