Dadderrs The Lockdown Telly Show

By Frauke Requardt & Daniel Oliver

Dadderrs was produced by The Place & co-commissioned by Dance International Glasgow, Sick of the Fringe, The Place & The Yard Theatre. 

The Place online until 21^st August 2020

Viewing platform:

https://www.theplace.org.uk/whats-on/dadderrs-lockdown-telly-show?dm_i=1T9U,6YOKB,RG5321,S0WG6,1

3***

Running times vary, 11 episodes. Review Mark Courtice 1^st August 2020

Since lockdown we’re used to seeing dancers performing in their front rooms and watching our theatre from the sofa. This reworking of a touring show for the screen takes it to a logical conclusion. As Daniel carefully explains this was originally made for a big orange space with the audience helping, but now it’s a question of their home and our home; if an effect isn’t possible they’ll explain how it was done.

Two young parents explore the business of being artists and a family, in a piece which combines hairy monsters, orange leggings and the occasional flash of bum. The name gives us a hint of Dada, the absurdist art form, but along with moments of being wildly odd, there are unaffected performances that often sharply reveal moments of truth; it’s a result of some careful choices in the words, movement and direction that it hangs together at all. There is a strong element of navel gazing, of picking away at the difficulties of being performers, hamstrung not just by the way that their minds work (or don’t) but also by the new realities.

Told in 11 episodes, all very short, the show meanders, but is strangely moreish; once you’ve started you do want to follow this couple both as performers and people. He’s dyspraxic and she’s ADHD and they both rub (sometimes literally) along OK. What seems like a normal suburban house with its breakfast round the kitchen table and washing in the garden is livened up no end by an orange double headed llama.

Big white balloons drift and squeeze round the little house as if needing the openness of a stage, but in the end one is left with the image of lives told on a small stage and longing for the bigger picture.

Created & Performed: Frauke Requardt & Daniel Oliver
Artist, Filmmaker, Camerawoman & Editor: Susanne Dietz
Music: Steve Blake
Production Manager & Sound Recordist: Tom Wilson