I Would Like To Get To Know You
The Vaults
Reviewed – 6 February 2019
★★★
“more entertaining and engaging than a lot of first dates”
The VAULT Festival is now in full swing entering its third week of presenting bold and brave shows. With Valentine’s Day looming, it’s currently all about lurve … Singletons, don’t worry, you won’t be made to feel ashamed or hideously reminded of the fact that you are drinking a bottle of wine, and demolishing a whole tub of Celebrations alone in your flat. I Would Like To Get To Know You, if anything, shows the difficulties and quite frankly, pain in the backside modern relationships can be. In a collaboration between Feral Foxy Ladies and Kaleido Film Collective, a cohesive mix of mediums and outside-the-box ideas help to make this delightful little show more entertaining and engaging than a lot of first dates.
Told in six parts, the evolution of the modern relationship is revealed. From its nucleus – matching on a dating app, to its inevitable extinction – the breakup. Audio clips of real-life interviews with people about their love lives (the good and the bad), make up the main bulk of the content, becoming the chief stimulus for the action that takes place on stage. Katherine Vince and George Cheetham create original songs, expressive dance routines, and comedic scenes around the audio, allowing a feast for all the senses.
Vince and Cheetham make a fun partnership. Vince may seem to wear the trousers in this relationship, dominating the stage with her kooky yet confident presence, however it is Cheetham, quietly in the background, generally providing the live music content, which is the integral puzzle piece in setting the tone and mood of the show.
The space is devoid of any set, however the area is filled with so many props, as well as the projector screen for the audio and visual portions of the performance that there’s enough busyness to take in. It’s cluttered, but this seems to well represent the inside of the millennial’s mind.
Although there are no revelations to be had from watching this performance, its strength lies in affirming how most of us twenty/thirty-somethings are all in the same boat: having the same awkward conversation starters on Tinder, remaining on dates with someone you know isn’t right for you within the first two minutes of meeting, looking for similar things in a potential life partner. It’s a lovely validation that so many of us are going through the same struggles. It brings the audience together. As do the collective laughs. Fun, flirty, and full of familiar embarrassing stories, it’s a match!
Reviewed by Phoebe Cole
Photography courtesy Feral Foxy Ladies & Kaleido Film Collective
I Would Like To Get To Know You
Part of VAULT Festival 2019
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