En Avant, Marche! @ King's Theatre, Edinburgh, 25 Aug
Set in the rehearsal room of a brass band, Les Ballets C de la B’s production En Avant, Marche!, directed by Alain Platel and Frank Van Laecke, is a delightful and heart-warming musical with a scattering of multi-lingual text, performed with brio
It is plotless, except for moments of buffoonery alongside surrealistic visual effects, slapstick and ruderies, but also has much pathos held together by the need to take courage and keep going in the face of life’s setbacks.
Wim Opbrouck, a large man with a craggy face, gives a rumbustious and endearing performance. In a sense he is Every Man. A former trombone player, due to throat problems, he has been relegated to playing the cymbals. There is a poignant scene where his neglected wife hands him medicine to gargle with, which he sprays into the air, whilst another couple enact rampant sex. But the individuality of the cast is also given full rein; the band as a microcosm of society. Moments of stillness are hugely effective in a show that at other times is full of baton-twirling, dance, and even acrobatics.
A local brass band is invited to participate wherever they perform – here it's the Dalkeith and Monkton Hall, who seem shocked by the cast’s antics, but give a stirring rendition of extracts from Elgar and Holst adapted for brass by Steven Prengels.
En Avant, Marche!, King's Theatre, run ended.