one4review | On 27, Aug 2026

Ontroerend Goed’s Handle with Care starts with one person in the audience raising what’s on every card on every seat.

It says that once everyone is seated, we should open the box. A woman with her husband and young daughter asks us if we should do it. She opens the box, her daughter reads the first letter to.us, and we’re off. This feels , strange.

I really don’t want to give away what happens in Handle with Care. What it offers is the experience of what people do with a framework but without leadership—in terms of community, performance and their relationships with one another.

We are asked to complete a series of tasks, but they begin to overlap and feed back into one another. There’s a group photograph. There’s a giant jigsaw that we’re all piecing together. There are steps to follow and things that people have to say. At one point, someone has to call their mother and we all say hello.

Everything that happens in the room grows out of the framework contained inside the box, but the box is really just a catalyst that allows people to explore, share perform and get to know one another.

A chap called George has a card that invites him to shake everyone’s hand and introduce himself. I’m asked to build a washing line across the centre of the stage after the group is told to choose someone who looks like they get things done. ( I’m a handyman so kudos to whichever asked me)

By the end, everyone has mingled exponentially more than they would at any other show. We know one another far better. We have shared this weird formative experience.

This is high-concept theatrical performance art without a performance artist—or it encourages the audience to become the performance artists. It never has that cringey feeling because there is nobody there watching us do it. In the void left by the lack of a central figure, the audience feels it has to step up to support the structure of the show.

It is incredibly life-affirming. It is joyful. As an experience, I’ve never encountered anything like it.

I believe the run is sold out for a reason: it is so damn good. But if you can catch Handle with Care, you’re in for a one-off experience that stands outside every other show.

It’s a true unicorn , evaporating afterwards leaving nothing but a joyful memory.

*****
Reviewed by Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp
Zoo Southside
Until 30 August
13.30 (1 hour 15 mins)