The Goldilocks Zone @ Dance Base

Expectations were high for Legitimate Bodies’ latest off-beat concoction of dance, theatre and comedy, The Goldilocks Zone. The company delighted audiences at the Fringe 2008 with their refreshing, perceptive and hilarious interpretation of the Irish Peace Process, Hanging in There. This undoubtable success clearly achieved the company’s aim of presenting “refreshing and exhilarating work that is accessible, provocative and real."

Unfortunately, The Goldilocks Zone falls a good length short of achieving this aim. Although devised, created and performed by the same two men, Nick Bryson and Damian Punch, it disappoints those who expect a performance on the same level as their last. Perhaps the premise is to blame: the vague storyline of the two lovably ditzy but goodhearted Irishmen travelling to a distant planet is neither as relevant nor as defined as that of the Irish Peace Process.

It does provide the context for a clever idea: the language of the aliens consists of all movement and no words. This results in some laudably goofy dancing from Nick Bryson, reminiscent of Stephen Fry’s ‘dancercise’, which Damian Punch translates into comically mundane English sentences such as “make sure to stir the beans."

Despite this, the performance is strangely short on dancing. Many of the stretches between the dance sections start with a funny idea, but drag on for too long, until they feel like they’re merely trying to fill up time.

The thing that garners the most laughs is a remote-controlled rubber duck, mounted on four wheels, which rotates around as if it’s break dancing. But when compared to their previous piece, this feels like a cheap gimmick, and leaves the audience wanting something deeper to laugh about. Unlike Hanging in There, The Goldilocks Zone hovers in outerspace, somewhere between dance, comedy and theatre…and doesn’t fully succeed as any.