DV8 PHYSICAL THEATRE: 3 Ballets

Strange Fish

As in all DV8's work, the performers in Strange Fish take astounding and humbling physical risks, and are audacious in fashioning metaphors of extreme emotion. The work concerns the nature of our quest for someone to love and something, or someone, to believe in. The tyranny of couples and groups, the pain of not belonging and the terror of being alone are all laid bare in a series of powerful images which are both pitiless and profoundly compassionate. Strange Fish is harrowing and frightening, but also contains some acutely funny moments.

Enter Achilles

A funny, cruel exploration of the male psyche, Enter Achilles is set in a typical British pub, a shabby, nicotine-stained boozer. Pop songs tumble out of the jukebox, there is football on the TV, and the eight men lark around, pint glasses in hand. But their blokish fun is balanced on a knife-edge of tension, for beneath the mateyness lurks a disturbing undercurrent of paranoia and insecurity, where weakness is brutally exploited and violence covers up vulnerability.

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men explores the grisley world of the notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Founded upon the conviction that societal homophobia is bound to result in tragic consequences, it gets to grips with the disturbing forces that drove Nilson to kill for company. In the anguished twilight between the meatmarket of gay clubland and broken-hearted bedsitterland, the fine line between sex and death is all but erased. Harrowing, and bleak, the fierce physical action that has become DV8's trademark is nevertheless shaped into a forceful plea for humanity in a dehumanising world.