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'Extravaganza Macabre' is back for Summer 2017. This review is of the 2016 run.
As a sprawling former Victorian town hall, Battersea Arts Centre isn’t short of space. Even after the fire last year left its main theatre space in ruins, there are former libraries and council chambers and ante rooms galore: so its decision to turn a previously unloved courtyard into a brand new outdoor performance space is a surprising one.
But it makes perfect sense once you see what playful theatre scamps Little Bulb can do with it. They make its brick walls reverberate with supernatural horrors in a melodrama that harks back to the theatre’s Victorian heyday. The three core performers impersonate a ramshackle troupe of players with a grim tale to unfold. It’s a story of doomed love inspired by penny dreadfuls and Dickens’s most extravagantly florid passages, and well-salted with flourishes by its cast of well-seasoned hams.
Little Bulb revel in the fun of nineteenth century theatrical tropes. Instead of getting bogged down in the era’s elaborate costumes and scenic flotsam, they focus on the comic potential of plighted brides, plucky urchins – and grooms with pasts so dark they make Mr Rochester look as innocent as Tiny Tim.
This pared-down approach is a perfect showcase for three performers who work like tightly-wound clockwork, whether they’re tumbling through trapdoors or plunking out silly songs on the old Joanna. Clare Beresford’s belting soprano rings through the courtyard walls, while Dominic Conway’s eye-poppingly extravagant speeches evoke the ‘throbbing cobblestones’ that Alex Scott stamps over with sepulchral villainy.
Eight years devising theatre together has made Little Bulb a fluid, endlessly flexible bunch of performers. But the real joy of ‘Extravaganza Macabre’ is that they’ve managed to leaf through the well-thumbed annals of Victoriana to make something that feels utterly fresh, bright and new.