Trafalgar Studios, London – until 19 August 2017
Enda Walsh’s award winning play Disco Pigs makes a striking come back at Trafalgar Studios. Screaming with energy and delivered at intense speed, this performance is electric.
Sinead and Darren, Runt and Pig. Friends from birth, born just minutes apart, this pair are inseparable. Constantly raring for a fight, they tag team one another in to blazing busts ups, each brutality glamourised by their excited, childlike squeals for the action. Pigs daydreams of Runt are sensual and almost pornographic, whilst Runt’s limitless love for Pig doesn’t cross over into sexual territory. Lynch and Campbell deliver the script in deliciously thick Irish accents, playing true to the topsy turvy, muddled and befuddled language of Enda Walsh’s script. ‘Jarr my bes pal in da whole whirl’.
Billows of smoke fill the space, the familiar ambience of a cheap nightclub – the perfect setting for Disco Pigs, which feels like a 75 minute rave. Disco Pigs will be marmite for its audience, either loving the authenticity and intensity of the piece or finding the strong accents and complicated wording too frustrating. Whether loved or hated, there is no denying this is a superbly designed and constructed production. Initially bursting through vagina shaped velvet, a simple light filled box and a wooden ladder create a number of playgrounds for the cast. Every choreographed move between Lynch and Campbell is synchronised within a millisecond of one another. Sensationally smooth, John Haidar has directed this piece with intricate precision and aggressive physicality.
Colin Campbell sweats with energy, delivering lines at speeds of thunder and dancing for several minutes at a time throughout the piece. Evanna Lynch’s golden tones make the obnoxious material, comically light. The coupling of Lynch and Campbell is hypnotising, their boundless energy leaves the audience feeling exhausted on their behalf.
