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For the Mime Festival, Shunt are moving to a bigger railway arch, under London Bridge station, where they will present ‘The Ballad of Bobbby Francois’: a re-creation of a real life Andean plane crash and the cannibalism that ensued among the survivors. “It was either that or The Poseidon Adventure.” Says Shunt’s David Rosenberg. “And we were thinking of doing it as a rock opera. The idea was to make something about finding new rules when the pressure of the environment demands it, and about how people’s behaviour is able to change.”

Before we are introduced to the table manners of anthropophagy, though, the audience has to shaken up as much as survivors. There are no real spectators here – everybody is a passenger on the plane, and had to experience the chaos, noise and fear of the crash.
“There’s no telling how people will react” says Rosenberg. “It’s now a show for kids. We have claustrophobia warning signs up and we advise against it if you’re of a nervous disposition. But we on e octogenarian in a wheelchair and as things were falling on her she was whooping like it was a roller coater ride. Her son, who was pushing her along, didn’t like it at all.”
“Sometimes people try and leave during the crash but it’s complicated because there’s not really a way out at that point. Ringham chips in “There is, there is. It’s not that bad, There’s a playful aspect to the audience interaction, although there’s a lot of dark humour.” But Rosenberg is not to be deterred: “Yes, although sometimes we dispense with the humour altogether and it’s just dark. Hannah is very concerned with health and safety. The rest of us aren’t particularly”.

After the crash, the audience gets some breathing space, “We don’t expect them to participate” says Ringham, “They’re invited to be involved in the performance. They can move around, see different things. I hate it when people are forced to do something they don’t want to do, and I don’t ever want to be in a programme that tells you what to get out of it”.

Clifford Bishop
(International Mime Festival @ The Drome, Stainer Street, London, SE1

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"You will soon feel at home....No one is going to help you except us....Try to relax" The voice in the incongruous panelled bar sounds soothing but the effect is sinister, for Shunt, the collective freshly affiliated to the National Theatre, has lured its audience into the vaults beneath London Bridge station for this exhilerating Freudian frolic in a perverse Narnia full of surprise. Apparantly pitched into a renegade research institute where vivisectionists are investigating what makes man tick, the audience are never sure whether they are visitors or subjects as they are herded about in darkness. Spasmodic light flashes reveal a string of queasily vivid images: a feathery flurry of exotic dancers, a heavy-metal funeral; an autopsy to ansere the question "How do we get back to the point we came in?" Appropiately, the cast dispenses tequila at the end- Tropicana is a mescal worm amid too much theatrical cheese and wine.