Circus / Ockham's Razor
Review: TESS, Unit 15 – ‘Charming, frightening, mesmerising and heartbreaking – my favourite show of the year’
It can be strange to consider the physicality of a novel. That stories – words on a page – have a form and a force beyond the intellectual is at once a bafflement and a truism.
Novels – well, to be precise, great novels – have the strangest habit of breaching their natural borders of the mind and metastasising into the body. This pilgrimage of wisdom, emotion and truth throughout our nervous system suggests there is something charismatic or numinous about the literary process.
When I heard that contemporary circus company Ockham’s Razor were adapting Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, I experienced that rare delight of having no idea at all what to expect. The event is part of Circus City.
is needed now More than ever
It was clear upon arrival that the staging of the show would be stunning. The set is abstract, simple and raw – owing to the excellent eye of Tina Bicât. Immediately, as the show begins, the skills of the performers fill the audience with that lovely confidence: we are in the hands of experts.
Ockham’s Razor and Turtle Key Arts present Tess – photo: Bristol Circus City 2023
The preternatural strength, balance and agility of the entire cast is evident within the first 10 minutes or so. I’ve never seen a circus adaptation of a classic work before, and the scope for what I think of as physical theatre with a cast of professional circus performers left me thrilled by the potential of the form.
Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney – Co-Artistic Directors of Ockham’s Razor – have created something authentically fresh. Hardy’s plot is subtlised by the elements of circus, without being diminished or distracted from. Nathan Johnston’s choreography feels at times unreal in its precision, whilst strangely retaining the quality of ostensible spontaneity.
To Aideen Malone – whose lighting design of Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons was also extraordinary, incidentally – belongs enormous credit. The lighting throughout is tasteful and evocative.
Of the cast, all are legitimately extraordinary. Macadie Amoroso, Joshua Frazer, Lauren Jamieson, Lila Nurse, Victoria Skillen, Leah Wallings and Nat Whittingham are by turns charming, frightening, mesmerising and heartbreaking. The final image of the piece stays with me still.
Ockam’s Razor’s TESS is my favourite show of the year, by some distance. I cannot wait to see what they do next.
Circus City is taking place at venues across Bristol from October 1-22. The full programme is available at www.bristolcircuscity.com.
TESS is now touring the UK until Spring 2024. Follow Ockham’s Razor @ockhamsrazoruk or check www.ockhamsrazor.co.uk for dates.
Main photo: Kie Cummings
Read more: Free performances from Ockham’s Razor will celebrate Circus City 2023 programme launch
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