SalfordOnline.com Rating: 3 out of 5Strike! is a contemporary circus performance based inside a Kafka-esque bureaucratic hell – and totally different to any theatre performance I’d ever seen before.
On stage, the props consisted of about 150 cardboard boxes, a telephone, a metal desk with a sliding wood panel and a metal chair.
The metal desk is very cleverly transformed into various structures from a lift to an aerial structure of a cage stranded in the air.
When the show begins it is set in an office location with a wall of cardboard boxes and very little else.
The words spoken at this point by one of the actors were then repeated several times throughout the show and can resemble many of our thoughts after a bad day at work
“Yesterday wasn’t a good day.
The weather wasn’t very nice.
It was cold and raining.
The bus wasn’t on time. It was late.
My boss wasn’t very happy because I was late for work. He was angry.
It was a bad day for me.”
I felt sorry for one of the actors instantly who was being bullied by his work colleagues, no wonder he was having a bad day.
I found that the second part of the show was much more entertaining than the first with each of the five performers showing the most amazing skill and strength whilst engaging in acts that had you sitting on the edge of your seat.
This included more acrobatic acts and I especially enjoyed the group slide and swing with the metal cage.
There was so much thought put into it that I didn’t feel that the story flowed and many parts were very chaotic.
The actors were truly amazing and very talented individuals but 60 minutes of this contemporary performance was not my cup of tea.
