Upstaged rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The mischievous and multi-talented Figs in Wigs return to HOME with their new performance, Big Finish. Packed with silliness and the troupe’s usual outlandish uniformed style, their latest show leads with a sense of impending doom – exploring a rational fear of the end of the world and the death of theatre.
For those who aren’t familiar with the company, Figs in Wigs are a quintet of identically dressed female performers whose genre-bending portfolio spans 15 years. Experimental and energetic, their work sits somewhere outside main-stream theatre – it’s joyous, anarchic and deliriously satisfying.
Big Finish is the company’s tenth original show. The whole performance – segmented into a colourful collage of chapters – is a rewarding, ridiculous and surreal mash-up of theatre, dance, clowning, music and a Q&A session, topped off with a foam party. One thing’s for sure, there’s never a dull moment in the performance’s 80-minute running time.
Disciplined, synchronised and off-the-wall, complete with latex lizard masks, a golf buggy, matching bee-keeper outfits (or were they hazmat suits?), violins and a signature array of wigs, Figs in Wigs manage to open a debate around some current hot topics in the art world. Amongst chaotic comedy and bewildering aesthetic choices, Big Finish comments on the predicament of theatre in terms of funding cuts, and the loss of audiences to television. And if we dive in even further – the whole show raises questions around consumerism and environmental damage, and even teeters on the brink of imminent apocalypse.
Big Finish is a tightly choreographed, perfectly timed performance. And littering my review with the fine details of the performance, removes the element of strangeness and surprise that this show thrives on. Through their art, Figs in Wigs offer a parallel performative world, a shelter from the grim reality of rising costs, lack of funding and associated narcissism. Glorious, radical and defiant.
– Kristy Stott
Big Finish premieres at HOME Manchester until Saturday 24 February before transferring to Battersea Arts Centre from 14-27 March.