Faster (tour)

Three thirty-somethings gyrating lithely onstage to a techno-track may sound run-of-the-mill nowadays, but the protagonists of Faster gyrate with manic purpose. They’re going through the motions of their frantic day. And the soundtrack of their lives is played live by three talented musicians on guitar (Tim Phillips) and versatile keyboards, with evocative programmed effects (Chris Branch and Tom Haines).

Based on James Gleick‘s cult tome Faster – The Acceleration of Just About Everything, the show explores our often troubled relationship with time and its tyrannies. But without narrative, no amount of physicality and techno wizardry would turn us on to travelling through Gleick’s thoughts about time.

Luckily, the three life-stories intertwine to give us the story we crave. The mime is precise and idiosyncratic, artfully introducing us to the individuals as much as to their lifestyle. When they get to speak, we find we’re in on the start of a love triangle, a tale to be played out at different speeds.

Ben (Ferdy Roberts) and Will (Will Adamsdale) are creatives in an ad agency on the fast track to the next rung up, they hope. It may be a hamster’s wheel rather than a ladder, but Ben’s going to make it and make it soonest. He does everything at speed – work, play, drive, of course – and speed-dating might have been made for him, given the breakneck pace at which he chats up Vic (Victoria Moseley). She’s taken time out from life in the fast lane to backpack round the world, but her plane’s barely touched down before their relationship takes off.

Meanwhile, Will plays tortoise to Ben’s hare. He’s known and loved Vic since their schooldays, but his ‘vegetable love’ has taken longer than Marvell’s Coy Mistress to come to the point of declaration.

How they fare and whether the fable of the tortoise and the hare proves apposite is the stuff of 70 fast-moving fun minutes that had the young(ish) audience on the edge of their seats, egging on the trio and pulsating to the rhythm of their lives.

Guy Retallack‘s production for Filter Theatre never loses pace but knows when to vary it and the musicians rightly share billing with the actors. Faster is seamless, it’s fresh and it’s got a moral. So catch it if you can as it makes its whistle stop tour of the UK, in tandem with three other BAC productions that sound equally promising.

– Judi Herman (reviewed at Battersea Arts Centre)