Review: RAILED, Brighton Spiegeltent

Head First Acrobats return to Brighton Fringe, bringing their new Wild West-themed show, Railed, to the Spiegeltent. The Australian quartet previously won Best Cabaret Award at the 2015 festival for their previous show Elixir.

The performers storm into the tent on hobby horses, galloping through the audience and onto the stage. What follows is an hour containing a series of scenes of rowdy and increasingly drunken cowboys with smatterings of spectacular acrobatic routines.

Debra Batton and John Walton have directed the troupe to give larger than life performances, interacting with the audience, even involving some members on occasion for some card trickery.

Stunts involving giant spinning hoolahoops, a human seesaw, juggling bottles and a notable stacked chair balancing act by Callan Harris garner gasps and delight from the audience. Thomas Gorham plays a 'Drunken Sherrif' alongside other characters you'd typically expect to find in a Western - Adam O'Connor-McMahon plays a barman, and Harley Timmermans plays the town hero.

Clever lighting design mimics ricocheting bullets and changes the mood of the room for the more sultry moments in the show, which the audience lap up. The theme is lost at one point when a scene between two players who don a horse and unicorn costume respectively.

A bizarre blend of somersaults and striptease, Railed entertains the crowd in the Spiegeltent through a variety of stunts in their scantily clad cowboy outfits.

Railed at Brighton Spiegeltent until 1 June

Photo credit: Brighton Fringe

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