Interview: Desperate Men

In their latest show Slapstick & Slaughter, Bristol’s veteran street theatre and physical comedy aces Desperate Men attempt to confront the absurdity of war in just 40 minutes, using their bodies, their voices and the surrealist toolbox of DADAism. Playful, physical and blackly comedic, Slapstick & Slaughter examines how the barbaric chaos of World War One manifested itself in the nihilistic, nonsensical art that grew from it.

The show splatters big ideas on a small canvas, exploring art’s reaction to the war’s wholesale destruction of lives, the old order and old hypocrisies and finding echoes in equally absurd modern conflicts. It’s won praise at performances across the UK, including anniversary gigs with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, at Bristol Slapstick Festival and numerous outdoor events.

Here are Desperate Men’s Jon Beedell (below left) and Richard Headon (below right) to introduce the show.

So, what can we expect from Slapstick & Slaughrer? A series of skits of warmongering politicians and absurdist artists?
Jon Beedell: It’s a collage of absurdist ideas mixed with fierce polemic, occasional ranting, elasticated gestures and disturbingly moving tenderness… and a lot of killing time.
Richard Headon: Yes, but there is also a narrative arc for an audience to cling to amongst the Dada. We don’t spell it out, but the two central characters do undergo an emotional journey. There’s Dorothy and George, and Richard and Jon.

What do you hope to send audiences away thinking and feeling… or will just a belly full of laughs be ample?
JB: I want laughs of course, but I also hope they’re tearful, angry, utterly bored, and deeply disturbed – and that they then do something with it. I hope they go away thinking about the imperative to DO something and not be complacent about the world.
RH: Life isn’t just a belly full of laughs. We tread a fine line here. There is a certain amount of reeling an audience in with the humour and then slapping them over the back of the neck with the dull thud of melancholy and loss.

As an art form, a practice, a way of viewing the world, has Dada influenced you as a company?
JB: Yes. No. Of course. Never. Maybe. Sometimes is my favourite word. All these and more. Dada is the perfect tool for imperfection. 
RH: We are of a generation where the bridge of Dada came into our consciousness with people like Spike Milligan, Monty Python, jazz and so on. We hopefully still have an awareness of what bits an audience enjoys being stimulated – and Dada tickles those parts.

What changes when the show goes from the street into the theatre? Is anything gained, is anything lost?
JB: I lose my voice on the street quite often. Outdoors we gain an attentive audience, they want to stay and they’ll stick to the pavement if we’re any good. Indoors we can bore the pants off them and they’ll still hang around because they paid. Mostly. 
Outdoors we’re bigger and crazier and there’s more of the unexpected – weather, heat, cold, rain, drunks, seagulls, litter, which all makes it more interesting. I love both, but the qualities are different. I feel freer on the street and able to be larger in expressions, and to engage directly with the audience, person by person – while indoors we’re more focused on details and subtleties of emotions and feeling, and the audience can sometimes be an amorphous blob. You play to the whole, not so much to the individuals…
RH: We have to sell the show on the street with huge amounts of energy and bravura. We have to physically sweep and draw in the audience – almost hypnotise them. It’s about theatrically nailing their feet to the ground. 

You’ve been in street theatre for, what, 35 years now? What has changed and what remains the same?
JB: Well, I’ve changed. Audiences are pretty much the same. Our approach is the same as it always has been – to do things that interest us and not stick with formulaic habits. However, we’ve changed the kind of work that we do as well – larger-scale work, longer-term projects etcetera. Another change is that I am getting angrier, and the reasons for that anger haven’t changed. Where shall we start ? Dada is not an answer or a panacea, and neither is theatre – but it has an obligation to be a response to power and a provocation to action. 
RH: I think we stick out a bit more now being of a certain age. Audiences are not used to sudden, shouty movements from older men.
Outdoor acts are noisier now, as technology has enabled portable sound. Audiences won’t necessarily sit and stay. They don’t expect to be drawn in: rather, they are on a passing conveyor belt sponging up stuff. We are a street food to be eaten on the move.

Slapstick & Slaughter is at the Wardrobe Theatre from Monday, June 27 to Thursday, June 30. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/slapstick-slaughter

Top pic: Jan Podsiadly