12.08.07

I Bezzed in my seat

Posted in Juggling, Reviews at 1:56 am by alby

Literally just back from going to day 1 of the Crawley convention. Wasn’t impressed last year and didn’t think I’d go this year but by god I’m pleased I did. Storming day.

Started off early enough with a drive up to D’s for 8. Not a terrible trip to Crawley either, a surprise as it’s M1 then M25.

Saw poi in the car park as we pulled in and then 1 or 2 familiar faces. Crawley is slightly odd for a few reasons. First is that there are loads of people there who you just never see at other cons. I reckon these bloody southerners just assume that north of Tottenham is arctic tundra.

Did my jugglermail business – Fak’s got the books and will be using the time between now and Durham to read as much as is Fakly possible. I have stuff from Alex to give to Jay too.

Paid and bumped into DB and Sarah (aka Gary Baldy) so first job…off to the pub! We actually went to book a table for later. Turned out they didn’t reserve tables – just turn up and hope – so we stopped for a drink anyway. Back to do more chatting and hanging out. Back to pub with D and Gary for more beer and a touch of food. Then back to the site. Gary buggered off to prep for her show and then we met DB again who wanted food. So back to pub again for DB and D to eat. More beer too. Somewhere in the middle of that I finally got some video of Carla dislocating her shoulder, finger, wrist (you name it, she can dislocate it).

Photos: Battery ran out so only a few:

Back to the site for the show. My word what a thing.

I’ve prolly forgotten lots of stuff about this show. But the important bit – the best show I’ve seen for many a long convention – top marks and a gold star.

• Gandinis came on first – lovely bouncing routine banging out a tune – but not Mozart.
• AcroJou with a german wheel act – wheelly nice choreography, new stuff to me, good music. Lovely.
• Sarah – Shakira shaking and nice 3 ball juggling. Missing a Wycliffe and ran out of tricks towards the end but only 1 drop in the whole routine. I did Bez.
• Evgeny and Sophie – doubles trapeze – Will you look at the shoulders on them two? Static trapeze done very well.
• Ady Pole – Stormed it again. Balls, rings and cigar boxes (ok not cigar boxes really) – 1 or 2 drops but hard stuff and still shedloads of energy. Oh and finally no U2 – ah but Bryan Adams.
• So and So doing acro stuff. Excellent acro stuff with some stunning moves. Stand out was her leaping at him groin first from standing into a “grab his head with her thighs” catch – magic.
• Gandinis again doing mad ring stuff – again not to Mozart – finished with a 4 person 20 ring passing pattern.

Well that’s the first half done and wow. By far the best 1st half of a show I’ve seen for, well, ever. Better than any BJC show I’ve seen. Mixed and skilled and funny at times and loads of applauding. Superb. And on to part 2.

• Ockham’s Razor – a longer piece with what started out looking like 2 climbing ropes. Actually it was one rope going up around a pulley, along the top to another pulley wheel and then down again. This meant that pulling on one rope lifted the other side up. 4 performers involved; all acting well, inventive moves, hard moves and beautifully put together. An excellent routine and should be seen by all.
• Nathaniel Rankin – from Canada doing a combined magic and ring juggling thing. The magic is apparently his original thing, having won a couple of awards for this in the past. Sadly his juggling didn’t cut it so well. Came across as a bit smarmy cheesy too – you know stage magician stylee.
• High Execution – Sports acro. Dodgy backs on parade in a wonderfully mental prog rock inspired sports acro bit. More cheese for this half.
• Gandinis again with their Mozart betuned gloclub routine. Seen a video of this somewhere online and it’s better live. Very good indeed. All 3 of their spots worked very well for me. They really are top notch nowadays.

So that was the show. Oh apart from Sarah and Ady turning up late for the curtain call. Funniest bit of the show (apart from bits of Ockham’s Razor’s act). There was a downer to the show though and it’s nowt to do with the acts or the organisers. There were lots of kids there – cool enough but they did insist on squealing with apparent pain when people were applauding – I blame those shit shows on telly where they have people singing and the audience squeal throughout (why?) – leave it to ITV Saturday evening shows please. Oh and very well done the nobber who started the audience (well the idiot portion of it) clapping along at the start of Gandinis second piece – so pleased that faded out embarrasingly after a few seconds – how inappropriate can you get?

Now what about the compere? Last year’s comperes were not great at all (being nice here) and one of the main issues was the lack of compering ie not telling us who was coming up, not telling us exactly when they were turning up oh and not being funny. They went the other way this year – Charlie Holland did the job this year and managed decently enough while giving us far more info re each act than we really needed. Much better this year.

So home now and should be sleeping. But I wanted to write before sleep.

A very very good day topped by a superb show. Terribly well done.

Have fun.

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