For their fifth season at the fringe, this quintet of Kenyan acrobats are performing to golden oldies, opening with both Chubby Checker and Sam Cooke’s odes to twisting. Their circus routines are interspersed with moves from 50s dance crazes but the concept really takes off with Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite. Here, the singer’s distinctive vocal range and zany word stretching perfectly complement the men’s evident joy in testing their limits and winning our whoops. “Look-a there, ooh wee!”
An overlong scene-setting intro in Alexander Sunny’s production, choreographed by Electra Preisner and Ahara Bischoff, finds the guys on a train station, having missed their connection to Chicago. Macs, hats and shades are taken off but Bilal Musa Huka, Rashid Amini Kulembwa, Seif Mohamed Mlevi, Peter Mnyamosi Obunde and Mohamed Salim Mwakidudu remain in otherwise formal attire.
The routines are performed as if a simple way to kill time while they wait for the next train. In a recurring gag, coins are used to either spin another record on the jukebox or call a lover who is being left behind. All of this is done through act-outs: the men remain as tight-lipped as they are loose-limbed.
Human pyramids are their speciality: one may rest upside down on another’s head while their neighbour dangles from the side with look-no-hands glee. Buttocks are there for drumming; lower backs become springboards. The doo-wop of the Marcels adds comedy to the troupe’s towering attempt to reach a blue moon while Elvis Presley’s A Little Less Conversation powers a frenzy of hoop diving.
But the scenario begins to feel stuck in a groove, the jokes repetitive, and it’s not just the soundtrack that’s a throwback to the 50s. A nagging female voice on the phone is an overdone joke. When a woman from the front row is brought on stage for the men to woo, it’s instantly cringy and the resulting scene has little to offer.
Happily the songs keep coming, such as Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, and the men steam on with rope tricks, somersaults and limbo feats. It’s all the more impressive as they’re at the end of a gruelling festival run – and they never even undo those ties.
