Director: Kane Husbands
Sometimes all you need in this day and age is a bit of radical happiness.
Renowned ensemble company the PappyShow is celebrating its 10th birthday in style. Over the last decade, they have been a force for positivity and inclusivity in UK theatre, born out of Artistic Director Kane Husband’s desire to create a space to just play, exploring every definition that the word holds.
This playful ethos is exemplified by this celebratory performance. Bringing together snippets and excerpts from their numerous past shows, such as Boys, Girls, What Do You See, Shine Black, Care and Black Girl Magic, along with some new material, this party serves as a smorgasbord of highlights from the history of the company. Over the course of four nights, the ensemble is swapped in and out, with the core members of the PappyShow remaining the same while the young company and the guest performers change every night.
The festive feeling is in the air. Upon entering the Pit, all the performers are spread across the stage and the seating bank, merging the audience’s space and the performer’s space into one, creating an inviting and relaxed atmosphere. Numerous balloons and cardboard boxes branded with PappyShow in big, colourful letters occupy the back of the stage, while the majority of the performers sit on seats on either side of the stage. It is as if the entirety of the Pit is for everyone.
In the case of medium and genre, this is a showcase of variety. Hosted by a member of the core team, we are led through a vibrant kaleidoscope of performance practices, dipping and diving between absolute hilarity to tear-inducing pathos.
Frequent ensemble singalongs, accompanied by Diarra Walcott-Ivanhoe on piano, allow the cast to band together in moments of collective catharsis that sting with poignancy and vitality. These moments often involve every member of the large cast, creating this wonderful sense of community that cannot help but seep from the stage onto the laps of the audience.
Dance and movement take centre stage, with some of this show’s greatest highlights coming from impressive moments of fluidity and emotive motion. Occasional monologues tackle themes of boyhood, womanhood and the hardships of living as a person of colour in Britain today with affecting power.
Although these snippets may be taken from their previous existing performances, they all stand on their own as superb snapshots of the times we live in. Rap and spoken word poetry also make an appearance with some very impressive rhymes and performativity, seamlessly shifting the essential vibe of the room. Is the space a theatre, a gig venue, a community centre or something else entirely?
Although not everyone in the cast has their own single moment to shine, it feels like everyone does. As a celebration of a boundary-pushing, inclusive company, The PappyShow’s 10th Birthday Party is jaw-dropping and a joy to witness. As an introduction to their ethos on performance, you could do no better than sharing in their production of radical joy.
Until 4 November 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Poignant sense of community
