CityLife

Hoohah

THERE is a fine line that separates conceptual performance art from self indulgent twaddle. Unfortunately, for several of the acts at Hoohah, this line was so severely crossed that not even John McEnroe could dispute the call. 

Demo by Will Davis opened the evening, making its fourth appearance of the festival.

The play deals with many challenging issues, but the acting was cringe inducing, and the play dragged on. 

Sharon Lancaster, the human puppet show was amusingly off-the-wall, but also deeply disturbing.

The relationship between puppet and puppeteer conveyed a darkly abusive undertone that transformed my early laughter into troubled gasps.

By far the strangest act of the evening was Kaite Boltain. Slithering on to the stage like a snake, her performance poetry had her wailing and writhing around on the floor as if suffering from female hysteria. Very bizarre.

Then came the music: first band Monkeys in Love made noise punk pop; primarily noise.

I was told the lyrics being shouted were, in fact, very meaningful, it was a shame therefore that they were drowned out by the rest of the music.

The Quays on the other hand sounded like a tuneless version of the Thrills.

If the acts can see the irony in what they do then it was all passable fun. If they take themselves seriously, then it was simply awful.