In this, the third visit of Birmingham REP’s BE or Best of European Performing Arts Festival to Bristol, three performances, linked by explorations of language and relationships were warmly appreciated at Circomedia. Each lasting no longer than 30 minutes, these acts have been chosen by the Birmingham REP audience as being the most popular and worthy of taking on the road.

The first act, Légende, written and performed by the Brazilian-Frenchman, Romain Teule, sought to illustrate our disconnect with foreign language, and highlight the sometimes hilarious but potentially serious consequences of misunderstanding or mispronouncing what is either said or written.

Teule, a slim man with neat black hair, wearing black-rimmed glasses, a lemon-yellow cardigan, rather short trousers and desert boots, looked every bit the university geek. Having emerged from backstage to a recording of bird twitterings, he proceeded to strut, not unlike a moorhen, around the stage, occasionally flapping his elbows or breaking into a leggy prance.  Giggles, at first stifled, began to break out amongst the sell-out crowd.

Then, sitting at a plain table staring hard out into the audience, sometimes as if spotting birds through binoculars, Teule spoke the words that appeared on the large white screen behind him into a microphone, but mashing them up not unlike comedian Stanley Unwin’s ‘Unwinese’ (more merriment in the audience). Using bird species, even Hitchcock’s Birds, within his theme, the poker-faced Teule explored the literal sound of words as one might analyse or ape birdsong. His thesis, that errors in interpretation can be both alienating and absurd were a surprisingly fresh take on the cacophony of human language.

Teule was followed by the engagingly underdressed Robin Dale from Bristol. Wearing naught but swimming trunks, sporting a green hoop around his neck and carrying a table tennis bat and ball, Dale proceeded to use his juggling to explain patterns in relationships, between the physicality of bodies and objects, with plenty of wonderful ping-pongery by example.

Progressing from balls to water, Dale impressed with gravity defying moves using three jugs of the wet stuff before entering a slapstick routine with a storyboard. Announcing he was ‘a tool’ (to more giggling), Dale outlined his formula for understanding the world – if we could only see how our actions and thoughts have cause and effect we would surely be enlightened as to how the world really works. As if in celebration, wearing seven table tennis bats appended to various parts of his anatomy, Dale closed by wowing us with some exemplary pinging and ponging, to the delight of the crowd.

Finally, then, to Kulunka Theatre’s poignant depiction of an old couple challenged by the onset of Alzheimer’s. Basque actors/producers Garbiñe Insausti and José Dault together with actor/director Iñaki Rikarte combine in mask to create the disintegrating days of André and Dorine.

Pulling no punches, this sometimes sad, sometimes joyous production needed no spoken word to tell its tale. Kulunka’s mastery of body language and understanding of human nature, combined with the expressiveness of their masks, crossed all linguistic boundaries.

André finds himself acting as carer for Dorine, who begins to lose her faculties – first forgetting how to play her cello, then not recognising her partner or son, finally needing help going to the bathroom and getting dressed.

Set to some moving, sometimes uplifting accordion music, André and Dorine also wittily explores the sparky early days of the couple’s relationship in a set of flashbacks, to a time when André’s prose was enough to seduce the musical Dorine.

A finely crafted piece, André and Dorine has already won awards in this country and in Cuba and continues to tour internationally.

An animated Q&A followed the show and the audience were able to ask all five performers more about their work and their methods. As a format, the BE Festival worked well, with audience and participants that much the richer for sharing the sometimes wacky, witty and wonderful overlap of ideas.   ★★★★☆   Simon Bishop   16^th March 2018

Photo Credit Jonny FullerRowell