Tuesday, November 22, 2005

BMG

Interactive shows involve getting the public to participate in, either by clapping, singing along, cheering or other forms of non-violent energetic expression. But sometimes it involves singling someone out, bringing him or her on the stage and use that person to make the rest of the crowd happy. Although you shudder at the idea of how embarrassing it must be, you think it could never happen to you. Until one day it does. For me, yesterday was almost that day. Boy was it close!

Yesterday, we went to the Blue Man Group show at the New London Theatre, Chris managing to get two tickets on her student card (before you start with the epithets, it wasn’t anything dodgy, every student could buy 2 tickets on their student card). The price of 40 pounds a ticket was quite steep I thought, but with a student card, it was only 20 pounds, quite a nice discount. It was a good opportunity to see something new, a show recommended by most people that heard of BMG. And that's because Blue Man Group, although big in the States, they're not that known in the UK. I think they've featured in an Intel tv advertisement, but that was about it, this tour being their first exit from their traditional turf - the States.
Unfortunately there was a small catch for students ... we had to sit in the first 3 rows and, to our surprise, we had to wear some blue waterproof plastic covers. Phew, later on, we found out why and it was yucky!

The show is quite interesting, although very much in the american tradition of working up your audience until they scream your name out loud. There were many americans in the audience too, most of them expats probably. The show is a combination of music (mainly percussion), colour, light, comedy, pantomime and unexpected little amusing events. It was funny, although in the first row, sometimes our vision was impeded slightly. And sometimes our heart was in our mouth, as they started to pick random people in the rows next to us, to do tricks with. It was the closest I could get to the stage, being in the first row and having people next to me being selected and made fun of. Sort of :-)

The plastic covers proved very useful when they started to spray banana mash into the crowds. We could feel the smell of banana even when we departed. But having a plastic cover was mostly an anxious experience, because we didn't know when they're gonna spray something towards us, so we were ducking and covering all the time. In the end in wasn't too bad, although the thrill looked like a punishment for using your student card and getting a discount. Bad bad students!!

In the end, it was an interesting experience, definitely something new and original, although I don't think it was worth 40 pounds. Well, maybe just once, so you can tick BMG on your list of "done that, got the t-shirt". We didn't get the t-shirts though. Cheapo students!

2 Comments:

At Tuesday, November 22, 2005 1:30:00 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Banana squirts? Yeap, Americans could take it that far...now you've got a see a real Halloween Bobbing for apples contest...yaaaaack...but fun!:)

 
At Tuesday, November 22, 2005 3:45:00 pm, Blogger Olha...e se eu pudesse entrar na sua vida... said...

há! we had a similar situation with Jump! the show of martial arts that combine Bruce Lee and Charlie Chaplin. They did the same, picking people from the audience to pretend they were fighting against. That was scary too! Keeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaay!

 

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