Review: Thorny, Arnolfini

Photos: Paul Samuel White

Thorny’s reputation as a boundary-crushing, genre-smearing, gender-blitzing bonanza of sound and performance peaked at its sold-out takeover of the Arnolfini.

Picture this: four underwear-clad femmes beating the tar out of each other on the Arnolfini’s auditorium floor to the sound of detuned guitars and shouted snippets of Theresa May’s speeches. This is THERESAMAYSMACKDOWN, a horribly engaging call-to-arms that presents the horror of living under May’s vicious reign through a tangle of limbs and satanic baying.  At one point, a wrestler holds another in the air as two others goad them on, growling, “running through fields of wheat, RUNNING THROUGH FIELDS OF WHEAT!” God, it’s thrilling – and this is just the opening act.

Writer and comedian Shon Faye arrives onstage after a watch of her funny, moving short discussing her experience of queer identity. After hilariously regaling us with the transphobic spite she receives on Mumsnet, she discusses her relationship to the Arnolfini’s main attraction of the moment. “I’m supposed to be honoured to be exhibited in the same space as Grayson fuckin’ Perry,” she says, “but why am I supposed to be pleased to be linked to a straight white artist whose whole career is about being a man in a dress when my whole career is about asserting I am not a man in a dress?” She finishes by urging all of us to speak out in support of trans rights – especially poignant in such a violent time of transphobic media attacks.

Next up is black, trans, gender-nonconforming performance artist Travis Alabanza, who emerges into the foyer space of the gallery decked out in a wedding dress complete with bouquet. They tell the packed crowd that they’ve been shamed by galleries throughout their life –  often being questioned about their presence in a traditionally white, middle class space. Their lip-synch performance of Anastasia’s Left Outside Alone is fist-pumpingly triumphant. This time round, there’s no question this space belongs to anyone but Alabanza.

Back in the auditorium, red-hot Bollywood hits are mashed into club bangers by DJ Manara, who gets the crowd throwing some unbelievable shapes. Then headliners Lone Taxidermist take to the stage, and it’s obvious from the outset they have grand plans to swing the night into yet another mind-bending dimension. From centre stage a latex-clad Natalie Sharp conducts a circus of freakish creatures. A rubber-glove-coated animal on all fours, a puffed-up orb of a woman with a gaping mouth, and her white-clad live band are just some of the characters that project her vision and terrify audience members.

Luckily, the adoring crowd are more than willing to go along with the whole nightmarish thing. They get involved in a trifle slip ’n’ slide down front, gamely suspend wet (with god knows what) sheets of polythene over their heads, and more than anything, dance till their legs shake to the whacked-out electronica Lone Taxidermist are relentlessly beating out amongst the madness.

The last act on the bill is Bristol-based producer Harry Wright of Giant Swan, with his project Heavy Petting. Pop bangers of yesteryear are given a new lease of life under Harry’s fantastically crooked musical eye, and as he bops around in his white parka, we forgive ourselves for shouting along to every word of every guilty pleasure. As he closes an exceptional evening with a remix of t.A.t.u.’s All the Things She Said, we wonder if we can do this every weekend.

Keep an eye on 2018 Thorny dates here: www.facebook.com/wearethorny