Boundary St West End has upped the ante yet again. West Village led the popular destination’s modern-day revival and has just welcomed to the strip Strut & Fret’s The West End Electric, a dazzling theatre and mezzanine bar venue that’s now humming at 125 Boundary Street.
Basking in the afterglow of its highly successful The Grand Electric theatre in Sydney, the August 29 opening of Strut & Fret’s 400-plus seat theatre in the heart of Brisbane’s West End is also a homecoming for the much-loved Brisbane-born circus cabaret aficionados, led by creative director Scott Maidment.
To celebrate, the company has resurrected its hit show Limbo which, more than 10 years after its first iteration at Adelaide Fringe, has been updated and rebadged as Limbo: The Return. In between, for those who remember, was Limbo Unhinged.
A curated combo of cabaret, circus, acrobatics and heart-thumping live music, Limbo: The Return takes us on a journey to a place beyond time …
If you’ve experienced Limbo in the past, you may recognise a few faces and enjoy meeting new ones. Purgatory looks like a lonely place but our eight cast members do their best to take their audience to the edge and back with their fire breathing, tightrope walking, tap dancing, whip cracking moments – and more – all unfolding while a funky and eclectic musical score transports us to Limbo with them.
Sxip Shirey is back as the maestro, air raid siren and harmonica firmly in his grip. The Brooklyn, US, composer, producer and sound artist is joined by Grant Arthur on the over-sized sousaphone and Mike Stuart playing anything from drums and bass to guitar and saxophone. Stuart also plays a unique instrument of his own device, The Polymba. Crazy sounds that get your heart pounding.
Rope virtuoso and Londoner Ben Loader expertly ascends to the ceiling of The West End Electric to the haunting sounds of Sydney vocalist Clara Fable.
But there’s more to Fable. She eats fire. We feel the heat. It’s all very intense. You’re left wondering why her lovely smooth skin, covered with fuel-infused foam and set alight, isn’t burnt to a cinder. And how do her lips and tongue survive the fiery onslaught?
Cheeky-faced Hilton Denis from Sydney gallops onto the stage. In game mode he tap dances to the crowd’s delight. Denis is playing with us and we’re playing back on cue. He’s adept at getting the crowd involved, whether it be clapping or making suggestive sounds.
Bulgarian-born Maria Moncheva performs her aerial number, but instead of the usual ropes her tools are metal chains. She contorts, twists and turns, splits, spins and dangles.
Spaniard David Marco demonstrates his aerial finesse with his quadruple slack rope stunt quite mesmerising.
There’s more fun when three artists anchor themselves atop flexible poles then swing-dive into the crowd, sometimes grabbing an audience member’s mobile phone to click, click, click a few pics before expertly returning the mobile to their hands. All this before a deluge of white feathers reminds us of our place in limbo.
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Those three pole artists are Denis, Marco and Moncheva, reminding us of our cast members’ multiple talents.
Don’t expect a narrative to the 100-minute show. This is a spectacle, though on opening night I thought the show lacked some of the momentum and wow-factor-inducing technical ingenuity that brings a crowd to the edge of their seats.
Still, Limbo: The Return – heaven or hell – is a fun place to hang out.
Limbo: The Return continues at The West End Electric, 125 Boundary St, West End, until November 3, $73.83-$155.39, thewestendelectric.com
brisbanefestival.com.au
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