Peacock Theatre, London
October 1, 2024
The tutu. The epitome of ballet. Here evoked by a rotating dancer, invisible save for the eponymous article, glinting in a spotlight as the music box tinkles.
But the tutus in Chicos Mambo’s Tutu are pink puff balls attached to fat suit legs making the six men resemble Miss Piggy in ‘Swine Lake’ as they pose and pirouette and tumble. There’s nothing fake about the technique though. Like The Trocks before them, these men could all hold their own in any nineteenth-century classic and a fair bit more besides.
Photo Michel Cavalca
But Tutu is about much more than classical ballet. The highly entertaining show also lovingly mocks acrobatic, contemporary and rhythmic dance. There’s a splash of ballroom too in a very funny take on Dirty Dancing, and much more.
The humour is broad in places but generally more sophisticated than The Trocks. There are lots of in-jokes and a fair bit of expectancy violation. Be warned! You may never see Rite of Spring in the same light again. Nothing is sacred.
The ballroom section is slick with a particularly impressive horizontal lift given a new twist, quite literally, in the jazzy ‘Blue Danube’ number. There are three words not often seen together.
The timing is impeccable throughout. Even classical Greek dance gets the satirical treatment. Anyone whose endured pretentious exercises in a modern or acting class will see exactly where they are coming from. For that matter, those of us with waist length hair will too.
Some of the dance can just be taken at face value. Yes, it is possible to consider the implications and complexities that arise when watching men in these roles that goes beyond mere camp, although there is plenty of that too, but some is simply beautiful and moving for its own sake.
The dance on the tissue rope in the long white dress evokes the ‘skirt dancers’ of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and is mesmerisingly lovely, even as one wonders how the circulation is sustained in the supporting arm.
Photo Ian Georgeson
The Dying Swan is as haunting as Pavlova and as subtle. Only the final few bars are executed en bourrée so that the choreography is stripped bare. It should always be about the back, the arms rippling out from the spine, culminating in that gravity-defying backbend and recovery to upright. The death of the swan radiates out from the centre.
An there are pom poms, fright wigs, lots of shrieking and falsetto voices, and glittery frocks.
Philippe Lafeuille has assembled everything that you need to cheer you up on a dismal autumn evening, ably assisted with excellent lighting by Dominique Mabileau and his amazing cast: Marc Behra, David Guasgua, Julien Mercier, Kamil Pawel Jasinski, Vincent Simon, Vincenzo Veneruso and Corinne Barbara.
An enjoy the Shostakovich at the end.
Tutu by Chicos Mambo is at the Peacock Theatre, London to October 5, 2024.