Review: Slapstick and Slaughter, Wardrobe

Bristol’s elder statesmen of comedy, Desperate Men have a 35-year track record of making original and engaging street theatre shows which can happen either indoors or outdoors, like flexible fireworks displays.

Indoors at the Wardrobe, august Desperados Jon Beedell and Richard Headon unpack a curious box-set of theatrical pyrotechnics, lovingly hoarded and honed for our delectation, and executed with a steady hand by two performers who are right at home in front of live audiences of all stripes. Wardrobe’s core audience (including many young theatre-makers) laps it up with glee – the two older dogs are well-qualified to teach them several new-to-them old tricks.

Slapstick & Slaughter was made in response to the centennial of the horrors of World War One, as seen through an equally centennial Dadaist lens. Dada was essentially an anti-war movement in Europe and New York from 1915 to 1923: an artistic revolt against the pro-war thinking of its day (though the word ‘dada’ was picked randomly from a dictionary: it’s French for ‘hobbyhorse’).

The show captures both the insanity and the tragedy of war-mongering, thankfully without hitting anything on the head with a hammer – though in the absurdist spirit and style of Dada, Desperate Men would be more likely to kiss the hammer or comb their hair with it.

The already surreal feel is heightened by having Angus Barr on board to direct, for as well as co-creating his own comedy gems (Publick Transport’s We Are Bronte, Department of Smelling Pistakes, et al), and collaborating with clownesque buffoons such as Spymonkey, Spitz & Co, Ridiculusmus and Gonzo Moose, Barr also knows his way round the musical variety genre that spanned the WW1 era. So for this show, it’s an artistic match made in heaven.

With nods to Ionesco, Jarry (Ubu Roi), anarchism and the Absurdists, Desperate Men go to work lightly and conceptually, fast-forwarding through the calendar of the 20th century and then slowing it down to ticks and tocks, spinning a wonky old iron hoop on an empty stage so that it upstages them (like them, it’s uniquely eccentric), and sight-reading nonsensical mouth music from a score. The tit-for-tat mentality of war is depicted as a slapping match: ‘if you slap me, I’ll slap you back harder’ is war in a nutshell. The two performers pop out like weathermen from behind a huge abstract canvas that keeps turning to afford them cover, to deliver lines that seem to take on a life of their own: “No matter how beautiful a thing is, if it appears in the wrong month, kill it.” “Art is greater than the sword.” “No-one ever seizes power with the intention of letting it go. One makes the revolution to establish the dictatorship!”

There are little moments of deep and timeless pathos in the absurdity: a pas de deux between a wounded soldier and his bearer, the symphonic mismatch of body parts separated from each other by art, It’s A Long Way to Tipperary sung while one of them removes a shoe to check his foot is still there.

Slapstick & Slaughter is a small but perfectly formed and darkly comical epic, packed tighter than a kitbag with visual surprises, guffaws of laughter and a disarming humanity. At just 35 minutes, it will leave you dying for more. Feel duty-bound to sign up: Your Local Theatre Needs You.

Slapstick & Slaughter finishes at the Wardrobe on Thursday, June 30. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/slapstick-slaughter