a one hour tour de force

— REVIEW | TITANIC, Cambrian News

Review

Doppelgangster’s TITANIC
Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Julie McNicholls Vale | Cambrian News

MARCH 24, 2016

I missed the memo about Doppelgangster’s TITANIC being performed outside so I was pretty cold as I watched the performance, in March, in the arts centre car park. I hate the cold. Everyone who knows me know I’m always cold and can be seen wearing my warm winter coat throughout the year. However, as cold as I was, I was gripped by this wonderful show and desperate to see where the one hour tour de force would take me.

Inspiration for the piece has been drawn from the screenplay from James Cameron’s Oscar-winning film, Titanic.

The ‘Titanic’ of this performance was a large metal shipping container, situated in the car park.

The audience, which sadly only numbered around twenty people when the piece deserved to be seen by many more, assembled in the arts centre box office before being led to the container, where the captain of the ship waved us, his passengers, to our seats. Well, sort of.

Plastic stacked seats for the audience to put out themselves, buckets of water in rows in front of the container to make us wonder if we were going to get wet and very loud music, set the scene.

The soundtrack to the show was fantastic, setting the fast pace matched by the performers, Aberystwyth based academic and performance maker Tom Payne and Australian actor/writer Tobias Manderson-Galvin. It did, at times, drown out their voices, especially at the start of the show, but a small tweak on the levels will sort that out.

Tom and Tobias play various parts from the film including Jack and Rose, and Celine Dion even gets an outing!

With so much water, electricity and a car driving through the audience (yes, you did read that right), I can see why the arts centre had reservations about safety, but the edginess of the performance enhanced my enjoyment and almost made me forget the cold.

This is the kind of theatre you usually see at Edinburgh Fringe. To watch it in Aberyswyth was a real treat.

LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE

“one hour tour de force”