Non-conformists everywhere, here is a show dedicated to you! Vic Llewellyn and Kid Carpet literally axe their way into a world where personal creative dreams become reality and where the line between madness and high art is shown to be as thin as a layer of graphene.

Beginning with the tale of ‘Olaf’ in Norway, a man who over five years singlehandedly builds a castle on a headland during release from his psychiatric institute, Llewellyn and Carpet launch themselves into their own homemade celebration of outsiders, unheralded artists and builders, makers and collectors. To accentuate the point, they were joined onstage tonight by wood worker Ben Rigby, who throughout the course of the hour, put together a sculpture made from branches, string and detritus from the stage. A different ‘maker’ is invited for each performance.

Along the way, Carpet’s zany songs exhort us to believe in our own creativity… “The things you do are visionary” and “Show us what you’ve got!” If Jim Bishop can build himself a 50,000-ton castle in Colorado over 37 years, well, what could we be capable of? The point is just do it! This was a cry in support of self-expression, free from license or regulation.

Amongst other extraordinary individuals paraded before us, with the help of some projected stills and film, were Ferdinand Cheval, a man who apparently never slept again once he began building his own castle on a vegetable patch and Robert Vassar who became obsessed with covering surfaces with broken ceramic crockery, not unlike Gaudi. Llewellyn’s own father’s poignant mini construction adds a pertinent prop to the show.

Carpet and Llewellyn work well together. Both of them seem very much at home in their own shoes. There is a casualness born of confidence about this performance – as if we could all just be sitting in a living room and they just suddenly just get out some bits and pieces and perform for us. And there is a disarming honesty to their approach. “You can just google stuff and make a show can’t you?” While they consort with the fantastic, there is also something very down to earth about them.

The RSC have recently gone into collaboration with Intel to produce high-end computer generated graphics to enhance their latest production of The Tempest. Carpet and Llewellyn prove that a cardboard box, a hand-written sign and an antique keyboard can make just as effective theatre. It’s the storytelling that counts.

Liberating and playful, the Castle Builder holds up an anarchic finger to the depressing tedium of the Trump and Brexit noises off.    ★★★★☆    Simon Bishop   27^th January 2017