Showing @ The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 6 Oct only
It’s the simple things. Or rather, the complex things designed to look effortless that make a piece of theatre. Tromolo Productions’ remix of Pippa Bailey’s Biding Time is a stylishly intricate mix of theatre, music and multimedia. The brutality of the music industry is captured succinctly by its own medium in a collaboration between Glasgow’s A Band Called Quinn and Grid Iron’s Ben Harrison.
A giant white rabbit brings a body bag on to the stage, and out of it comes Louise Quinn, front-woman of A Band Called Quinn. With silent disco style earphones on, the audience stand around the stage, a long platform – almost road, almost catwalk – that slices the space in half and roots ideas of journeys and image obsession.
The rabbit (metaphorically) leads her down the hole to the magical world of showbiz, where we see generic pop music and sex appeal to be a must. The dialogue, which is authentically pulled from the experiences of the band, is used over a live soundtrack of original music that forms the backbone of the storytelling. The perception and expectation of women in the music industry is explored through costume and make-up changes that take us from naivety, through a record deal, with a paparazzi shoot and a sexed up Rihanna-esque performance to eventually being dropped. Harrison’s sophisticated use of space and props transposes intelligent and insightful ideas into easy and impulsive imagery. This is a very carefully constructed piece of theatre that tells a story, makes a point and is as endearing to listen to as it is to watch.