Pedal Pushers, Theatre Delicatessen.

Picture from Roland Smith.

There is an infamous scene in Mad Men, in which a drunken secretary at an office party accidently drives a lawnmower over one of the staff members feet. It is a perfect illustration of why you shouldn't ride machinery that's supposed to be outside, inside an office.
Theatre Delicatessen clearly took this on board when deciding to tell a story about the Tour de France, told with not one bike to be seen. All of the racing is illustrated by the actors bodies, a selection of plastic chairs and some metal crowd barriers. This decision leads to a whole of host of imaginative imagery which instead of illustrating speed evokes the mentality of the riders. The best of these moments being the first time Lance Armstrong rides after his recovery from cancer. When the starter pistol went, the audience had a moment of wondering. 'What are they going to do? He hasn't got a bike? Are we going to have to watch him just stand there and explain the race?'. Armstrong (played appropriately sociopathically by Christopher Tester) , staring forward, stepped out into the space, as rest of the actors quickly whipped around him, placing chairs under his feet, as he walked, never dropping his pace or focus. It was a perfect illustration of his stubborn commitment and the ever present sense of risk.

Unfortunately, the play wasn't consistently image based throughout, as is understandable for a piece of documentary theatre, it did all too often err towards textual description. There was a vast amount of technical detail and description to cover, yet the result of this attempt to deliver information was more 'wordy' than theatrical and there were sections of the play in which the cast, though making every effort to deliver the text as evocatively as possible, lost me amongst terms I didn't know, people I hadn't heard of and details which didn't deliver. All of the cast were skilled and enigmatic and suited their casting, they had clearly paid a great deal of attention to detail in their physicality and the constant scene changes were performed deftly and confidently. Yet there was something about their precision, whilst matching the technical requirements of the cyclists they were portraying, that felt at odds with the space itself.

Back to that office space; Theatre Delicatessens home for the year. Low ceilinged office spaces work for the intimate format of  camera, but they have to be used carefully in the theatre, as they can often feel stifling. Attempts had clearly been made to transform the space but the slap dash nature of the sheets made into mountains and the soiled carpet tiles, whilst perfect for some forms of storytelling felt at odds with a story about sport, which clinical and precise in nature. Even the attempts at transforming the bar into a prototype drug station, and the corridors full of memorabilia just seemed to highlight the 'officeness' of the place rather than hide it. I'm sure that in one of the cleaner, less cluttered spaces they have played on tour the piece would have worked better, but perhaps without the mountains and a more sophisticated soundscape. I look forward to seeing what they do next there, for the right project, it has potential.