one4review | On 18, Aug 2015

What can you make your audience do, how far can you go? People who like to sit, listen and have minimal contact with the performer are really not going to enjoy this show.
Victor Slung is a poacher-turned-conservationist trying to kill all the rhinos; the audience is to attempt to stop him by completing some challenges. For every audience member who fails, Victor chalks up another kill. The challenges involve lots of audience participation, and because the audience I was in was relatively small, there’s nowhere to hide.
I’m all for audience participation, and definitely in favour of trying something different, but to take people so far away from what was expected (there is absolutely no way you could expect the contents of this show) it is first necessary to trust the performer, and I don’t think this was sufficiently achieved. (Another option is for a more lubricated audience). I also wonder how well the finale would work with a full house: it was perfectly visible for a dozen of us, but probably not many more.
There is a serious side to this show. In the casting the audience as defenders of the rhino it subtly raises the challenge (enounced more forcefully by Slung at the end): what are you going to do to save them?
Good substance in this show, but perhaps a little too reliant on a willing audience.

Reviewed by Laura

New Waverley Arches, 14:00 (not 19th or 26th)