Review by Steve Bennett

What a loud, joyous, mess of a show this is, smashing up music, dance, comedy and primitive computer graphics into a cacophonous turned-up-to-11 mind-trip. This does not belong in a seated theatre at 5.30pm, but in the middle of a music festival field at 3am; where the crashing beats and fluorescence would draw ravers like moths to a flame.

By right, we should all have brought glow-sticks and whistles, but we are provided with perception-altering glasses, handed out in the queue, for the visual feast of a finale.

Sirqus Alfon are four jumpsuit-clad musicians with preposterous facial hair, introduced to us like characters in a video game in the first of many neat presentational flourishes. Key players are the preening arrogant frontman Banham 2000 and the awkward loser no one likes. Or drummer, obviously.

Between them, this Swedish quartet create some fine slapstick and great moments of physical comedy, never more so that when the action is fast-forwarded, rewound and slo-moed. Covers of classics such as Purple Rain and, erm, Rhythm Is A Dancer are mangled through technology and musicianship that favours enthusiasm over precision. This is not so much a wall of sound as the wrecking ball crashing through it.

Elsewhere there’s a Jean Michelle Jarre style laser-enhanced instrument, Reggie Watts-style loop sampling, and more shouting and bombast than at your average football match.

There is no gear but hyperdrive; the only way they can bring the energy down is to bring the show to an absolute shuddering halt, the technology and the instruments all silenced as the foursome squabble over what went wrong and how to restore it. It’s madness, all right, but surprisingly entertaining madness.

Review date: 24 Aug 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett