Melbourne Observer
Fri 5 Sep 2025
David McLean
“There haven’t been too many shows that I’ve walked out of as a reviewer but The Anarchy (1138-53) was one of them.”
REVIEW
THE ANARCHY [1138-53]
ZERO STARS
There haven’t been too many shows that I’ve walked out of as a reviewer but Doppelgangster’s The Anarchy (1138-53) was one of them.
Presumably trying to appeal to the historical period of the same name when England and Normandy were at war, the oral stream of indecipherable verbiage from one performer and then the other (Tobias Manderson-Galvin and Kerith Manderson-Galvin) left one wondering what was being talked about. This wasn’t dialogue but a barrage with the occasional anachronistic reference thrown in for good measure.
One minute we were in the dark ages and the next there were references to gunshots in America. Much of what I saw was played in darkness. You could make out the two figures but not see their faces.
There also seemed to be difficulties with one of the microphones but this could have been part of the act. The prospect, then, of sitting through a running time of two hours and 15 minutes without a story or characters to identify with was too much to entertain.
It’s all well and good for them to call themselves theatrical saboteurs but there needs to be substance there in the first place for one to break with convention.