Crazy Glue @ Assembly Roxy

Crazy Glue is a rather noisy silent film in which Single Shoe Productions portray 1920s domesticity in clever and at times hilarious mime, as they produce delightfully disgusting sounds. Imagine the noise of a ketchup bottle unwillingly giving up its contents, if you will. The couple’s movements are perfectly synchronised as they brush their teeth, slick their hair back and squirt some crazy glue on to every problem that needs fixing.

Their approach to love and marriage seems like a picturesque reflection on the belief that there is a product to cure every woe. They happily squirt along until a problem presents itself to which they find no shoppable fix, though not for lack of trying.

The innovative format of the piece means that the performers only have a limited range of expressions at their disposal, which have to be quite cheesy in order for them to be comprehensible and to work with the period feel of the show. After some time, watching someone suggest they have great teeth (with appropriate sound effects) gets old. Nevertheless, the silence and rage brought about by the central drama of the show mean it comfortably holds the audience’s attention for its full duration.