INSOMNOBABBLE

“A stunning theatrical accomplishment”
Liverpool Echo

BIG WOW in association with Richard Jordan Productions Ltd

Big Wow fresh from Edinburgh with their third show, INSOMNOBABBLE, a hugely inventive head-twisting mind-bending perversely comic satire about dreams, reality and the thin line between.

Keith is just your average, alienated everybloke. All he wants is a good night’s kip, but the little nagging voice of anxiety in his head just won’t shut up. As a result his life becomes a sleep-deprived blur.

Insomniacs welcome.

Reviews

Big Wow blend physical theatre, anarchic comedy, multi-characterisation and a romantic subplot in this wonderfully uplifting and energetic show. Insomnobabble recalls Theatre O’s Stage Award winning Three Dark Tales in its inventiveness and exuberance.

Virtuoso timing, hilarious facial contortions and the ability of two performers to fill the stage with different characters show the discipline and comic genius underpinning Robert Farquhar’s direction.

Mark Rutter is Keith, an office worker whose angst-ridden nights blur into repetitive days. Rutter’s compact physicality helps him whip through Keith’s morning routines and pratfalls, while his face alone conveys the voices he hears at night. Tim Lynskey plays all the other characters, from a Dot Cotton-like colleague Doreen to a whole Insomniacs Anonymous group in a performing tour de force that had the audience in stitches.

The show pinpoints the absurdities of office life and the strange echo chamber of the insomniac’s mind. Its two performers create characters out of thin air, a second separating a stocky thug from a flirty young woman. Insomnobabble turns loneliness into laughter and shows you what theatre can do that no other medium can.

THE STAGE

Are you sure you’re not dreaming? Dreaming about being awake? As the audience, you’re caught up in this disturbingly vivid display of disarray and disorder where dreams and reality dribble into one another to form one big mess of mental meltdown. The general theme is sleeplessness but in fact you leave the show feeling like you yourself have not slept in eight years: the two lone male actors on stage are just so exhaustingly impressive! Freakishly flexible facial expressions, the ability to juggle multiple characters with ease, a bit of male-playing-role-of-sweet-dewy-eyed-female, and a slick style that makes sticks and spades and sheds seem funny. Go see.

[Victoria Jones] 7 August 2006
Three Weeks

This is full-bloodied comic theatre that is “strange, fast and very funny.”

Liverpool Daily Post.