Review: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2020: COLD BLOOD at Ridley Centre, Adelaide Showgrounds

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Thursday 6th March 2020.

For their amazing production, Cold Blood, Michèle Anne De Mey, and Jaco Van Dormael took a text by Thomas Gunzig and now tell it using a unique performance medium that they have dubbed 'nano dance', utilising choreography that is entirely below the elbows. They are also the co-directors, De Mey and Grégory Grosjein are co-choreographers, and Van Dormael and Julien Lambert are co-cinematographers.

Over the course of this imaginative performance we are told of seven 'stupid deaths', each played out on miniature sets by Michèle Anne De Mey, Jaco Van Dormael, and Kiss & Cry Collective. Exactly how people were killed by a bra clasp, washing their car, eating mashed potatoes, and other strange deaths, is revealed in this fascinating performance.

Everything is filmed live and displayed on a huge screen above the performers. Below the screen, we see where and how the magic is being created by a tightly coordinated team.

There is a constant flow of trolleys and equipment arriving and departing, with cameras running around the stage on tracks, and black-clad people creating the most remarkable lighting effects using innovative techniques. There are also occasional atmospheric segments of black theatre. As an example, a small tabletop with a number of vertical sticks, subjected to a short burst from a smoke machine, becomes, in close-up, a mist-filled forest.

Gunzig's voice-over introduction and running commentary, narrated by Toby Regbo, is filled with humour, often quite dark, and occasionally bizarre. There is an eclectic musical score accompanying the various scenes and interludes, ranging from Doris Day to Ligeti, whose opera, Le Grand Macabre, was part of a previous Adelaide Festival.

A stunning set for a tap routine worthy of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with the fingers wearing metal thimbles, a water ballet in the style of Busby Berkeley, and a rocket launching to David Bowie's song, Space Oddity (Major Tom), are only a few of the captivating scenes in this packed production.

The standing ovation and extended applause that followed the performance was fully expected and greatly deserved. If you can still get a ticket, do so.

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