Review: Driftwood (Underbelly)

Running at a swift 60 minutes, Casus’s new production Driftwood certainly doesn’t hang about. In fact, this succinct show created by the Aussie circus company rapidly tumbles its way through the hour in its new home on the South Bank. Hotly tipped from the 2016 Edinburgh Festival, the production is neatly packaged into a series of fiendishly worming group moments and a few lovely individual scenes.

The five-strong cast take their turns in showcasing their individual talents – think aerial hula-hooping and a headstand on top of a pole – whilst group moments include bodies fusing together to raise each other up in wobbly human towers of two or three. These select group moments provide the real gasps from the audience including one of the acrobats being swung as human skipping rope and flipped onto the shoulders of another performer.

But whilst there is no doubting the talent and strength of the cast, I found Driftwood to be lacking a certain something. Some of the tricks felt like they didn’t quite land correctly and there was no playful angle worked in, which left the production a little flat. With this shortage of entertainment value, it was hard to fully get lost in the work and any moment which began to show promise felt thrown away.

In a saturated market with acts such as Compagnie XY and La Soirée, the cast needed to work harder to create more of an electric energy between them and to create a form of narrative to help transpose the work. But whilst I have my gripes that the performers looked a little more uneasy than other professional circuit acts around, it serves as a good reminder of the real danger onstage and the sheer strength and skill required.

Essentially, there are a few glimpses of greatness coursing through this production but more work is needed to stop this show from drifting out of mind.

Driftwood runs at the Underbelly Festival until 4 June.