Thick & Tight - 'Natural Behaviour'
Both sensitive and challenging in its treatment of the question of what is natural and unnatural.
There was a time when Norwich Theatre Royal and Norwich Theatre Playhouse were both key participants in the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. I remember seeing performances from the likes of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, and Spanish flamenco artist Paco Peña packing out the stalls and circle of the Theatre Royal; and will never forget Pol Heyvaert's fabulous Wild Life project that ran at the Playhouse in 2016, and from which so many talented young Norfolk musicians emerged.
However, the city's premier theatre is back in the Festival programme this year, and the Playhouse is being used for two productions. Luckily, I was able to get along to see 'Natural Behaviour' at the Playhouse, a collection of short pieces written and performed by Thick & Tight, a company led by Daniel Hay-Gordon and El Perry that creates a mixture of dance, mime, theatre and drag. The pair take influence and inspiration from a wide range of natural, political and literary subjects and, together with fellow performers Annie Edwards, Azara Meghie and Jahmarley Bachelor, create a 95 minute show that feels like an old-fashioned variety revue and yet makes the audience constantly review what is menat by 'natural' or 'unnatural'.
And whilst an orange pantomime horse, dancing to The Trammps' 1970 dance hit 'Disco Inferno', and whilst Donald Trump's head emerging from its rear quarters, repeatedly joining in with the song's “Burn, baby, burn” lyric may not be subtle, it certainly is topical.
By contrast, 'Ode to The Last Nightingale' is a moving 11 minute muse on the decline of wild bird numbers, performed by Annie Edwards. 'Creeping Bent' uses a blade of grass in the wind as a metaphor for the different forms of queerness, whilst 'Lesbian Seagull' is a short animated segment inspired by a scientific investigation which found that wild animals and birds can exhibit non-binary behaviour, and enjoy Englebert Humperdinck's back catalogue.
The first half of the show ends with 'Two Moths In Real Time', a sensitive and evocative piece, part-inspired by Japanese theatre tradition, and including music by both Yoko Ono and Stockhausen, which is sensitively viewed through the insectoid eyes of Hay-Gordon and Perry.
After the short interval Daniel Hay-Gordon returns to dance what, for me, was the highlight of the show, a beautifully fluid 16 minute ballet piece, 'Recollection of Others', danced to the music of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto, in which Hay-Gordon's body twists, turns and stretches in search of physical connection.
'Baldwin's Room', with a jazz score compiled from the music of Miles Davis and Jon Hassell, and the recorded voice of American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, is another strong and powerful exploration into the impact of being seen as somehow 'unnatural', this time as a gay black man in the 1950's. Azara Meghie's body writhes in tortured anguish as he moves to the spoken soundtrack of Baldwin's words.
By way of complete contrast 'Flies On A Spaceship Wall' is a four-minute snapshot of celebrity-inspired nonsense devoted to Katy Perry's 2025 journey into space aboard a Blue Origin rocket, as viewed by Hay-Gordon and Perry as stowaway flies. Very funny.
And the show ends with 'Dust', probably my favourite segment of the entire show, as Jahmarley Bachelor, as Quentin Crisp, reflects on the forty years spent living alone inside his Chelsea bedsit, never cleaning the room, yet remaining steadfast in his lifestyle choices, opinions and preferences.
A spectacularly varied and thought-provoking collection of dance pieces, specially performed by Thick & Tight in a relaxed and comfortable space, and with integrated performance captioning, meaning that this is a show suitable for all audiences (however, there are warnings that some of the recorded interview soundtracks contain references to racist and homophobic abuse). A slight shame about the amount of theatrical haze in the auditorium which meant that my colleague had to leave during the interval but, for those who stayed to the end, ‘Natural Behaviour' is both sensitive and challenging in its treatment of the question of what is natural and unnatural.
And don't forget that Norwich Theatre Royal is hosting the Scottish Ensemble's Norfolk & Norwich Festival concert on Sunday, with a programme featuring music by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. Good to have both venues back in the Festival programme.
