The Gannet

The Gannet, from Fat Content Theatre Company, is a post-modern take on the Brothers Grimm classic Hansel and Gretel fairytale that began as an experiment in the underground vaults of London's Southwark Playhouse. The performance is startlingly innovative, creating an imaginary world that depicts the very real experience of adolescent awakening and the subsequent transition to adulthood.

Abandoned siblings escape a restrictive plague-ridden city, where men and women can’t mix, to a liminal forest of bizarre logic and shattered taboos. Becoming intoxicated by sugar, brother and sister reveal their animalistic sides and discover their gluttonous hunger for excess as they come closer to the witch’s fire. At times dark and shocking, this complex performance about youth’s thirst of curiosity has the feel of a Tim Burton film.

A highly sensory show, the actors move the audience to laughter, whilst in the background the sugar sweet ‘caramel vapours’ turn into the odours of ‘bloody human flesh’. What works so well is the pastiche of different textualities and art forms in representing varying human consciousness.

At once comic and tragic, by integrating an interactive cabaret show with strong physical acting, this meta-theatrical piece creates a very subjective experience for onlookers. Highly experimental, this style of surreal theatre might fail to please all. Moreover, its performers could be criticised for spreading themselves too thin due to the fragmentary nature of their characters.

However, by intelligently drawing attention to the difference between dramatic art and the reality of life, The Gannet successfully challenges us to see their similarities.