A post-apocalyptic world where clown scarecrows run a pirate radio station, playing their own compositions, and fighting against industrial farms who ruin the environment. Sounds like a normal night at the theatre right?
Philippe Quesne, one of France’s most renowned experimental theatremakers brought his Farm Fatale to the Southbank Centre to a crowd of mainly enthusiastic fans ready to take on something strange. Somewhere between the teletubbies and a deranged clown, the scarecrows aren’t meant to be cute or even really funny, although they are wildly endearing. Those looking for logic or even drama may find themselves wanting more — this is about creating a world and exploring the limits of this container with these characters, rather than driving dramatic moment. It is intentionally still, even when it moves. It takes time.
This isn’t for everyone. It is at the edge of failure in performance, testing the audience’s patience and attention, our willingess to suspend meaning making yet also have it thrust upon us. It was intensely weird. And I adored it.