Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Sun 25 Aug @ times vary
Democracy, elections and voting: is there a one-size-fits-all system, or is the solution inevitably flawed? It’s a game that everybody plays whether they want to or not: everything is political. Internationally acclaimed Ontroerend Goed return to the Traverse with another interactive critique of democracy, and the manipulation and hypocrisy that is weaves through it. Five candidates compete for the audience’s vote. There can and will be only one winner but who it is gets decided throughout the event.
In comparison with some of their previous work, Fight Night is a (relatively) polite, comfortable and placid experience. But that’s not to say the punches they throw don’t carry weight. The trick this time is in making the audience feel secure: voting is anonymous, the questions (and subsequent observations) offer some humour in the all-important strive for a sense of shared-experience. As ever, technically the show is slick; artistically, every gesture, movement and line has been engineered to provoke a reaction, as subtle as it might be. The parallels drawn with current electoral systems are obvious but still, this is a clever piece of theatre made to get you thinking. The trick is to make up your own mind.