Keeping a wet and windswept audience engaged is a tall order, and Requardt & Rosenberg got an overly-generous reception for their sci-fi dance piece, Future Cargo.
The 50-minute show in Chapelfield Gardens focused on a shipping container with one side opened up to reveal a travellator populated by three silver-clad figures, looking for the first 10 minutes like an aerobics session for Terminators.
Gradually more colour and humour crept in, with the enigmatic figures wearing neon clothes and candy floss wigs, indulging in a water cooler moment, or riding a rollercoaster.
There may have been some grand message behind this – the cargo container a symbol of universality; the soundtrack references to alien sightings exploring our capacity for seeing the magical in the ordinary; our lives a conveyor belt of mundanity punctuated by occasional sparks – but in the wind and the rain it just felt random without being fully surreal, stretched thin, and a tad indulgent.
The piece lacked the narrative thread of the troupe’s former Norfolk and Norwich Festival show Electric Hotel, and the odd pink hairpiece simply didn’t provide enough quirky charm to spark a rainbow amongst the rain clouds.
