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Bit parts: Garry Starr Performs Everything @swkplay

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Garry Starr Performs Everything is a bare-bones (and bare buttocks) tribute to the theatre. Theatre may be in trouble, and audiences are down, but Garry Starr aims to save the theatre and bring back to the masses every style of theatre possible. As long as each style involves wearing a transparent white leotard or a skimpy thong. And tassels. It's part comedy, part physical comedy and part perv at Gary's physical prowess. The sentiment "if you've got it, flaunt it" applies here. So here we are with a show that has been around for some years and is having its first proper London run at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) through Christmas. The premise is that Garry Starr (played by Damien Warren-Smith) has left the Royal Shakespeare Company over artistic differences. He is now on a mission to save the theatre from misrepresentation and worthy interpretations by doing things such as a two-minute Hamlet, recreating scenes from a Pinter play using unsuspecting audience

Quick snatches: The Future of Sex @wardrobensemble


The sexual revolution wasn't quite as it seemed in this style over substance account of sex in the seventies (or should that be present day)?

The Wardrobe Ensemble had a hit in Edinburgh last year with this show that goes beneath the hype of the sexual revolution, only to find that things were just as awkward then as they are now.

Narration, inner monologues and jump cuts to the present day pepper this story of a group of young people discovering sex in the 70s.


The theatrical tricks are quirky at first. But after an hour they feel repetitive and get in the way of real characterisations and story development. In the end there are few surprises.

Still there is a throbbing soundtrack, bad hairstyles and an awful lot of polyester. There are some nice touches that hint at the hypocrisy of the time. And when the sex does finally come, it's a spectacular swimming extravaganza.

But maybe you either had to have been there in the 1970s, or be a twenty-something now to get it. For me it was a shallow experience.

The Wardrobe Ensemble are a Bristol-based group of artists that work to create new works. This one pulses and throbs until April 23 at Shoreditch Town Hall. There is a tour that follows.

⭐︎⭐︎


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