Choreographer Joseph Mercier has rebelled against his ballet dancing roots by making past works about bondage and butt plugs, drugs, sex and self-harm. So this is a surprising departure, a family-friendly show about superheroes with lots of Lycra and laughs.
R.I.O.T. is a pastiche of comic book tales, with four superheroes fighting for good (and sometimes evil) and all the requisite ingredients: convoluted backstories, secret identities, sidekicks and special powers. They lovingly mock conventions of the genre and break out of character to bicker between themselves. “How am I supposed to fight in these?” says one female supervillain pointing to her stiletto boots.
The cast throw themselves into stylised fight scenes, the stuff of real bodies and not blockbuster CGI. R.I.O.T.’s rough-around-the-edges nature is both its charm and its kryptonite. It’s clever and likeable, with great projections and amusing performances, but it does rather have the air of a student show.
We almost get into bigger ideas as the protagonists fight over who gets to tell the story; who gets to be the hero. Everyone thinks they’re fighting on the side of truth, and that taps into something resonant in this age of Islamic State and the ideological War on Terror. But it’s just a fleeting moment in an enjoyable caper that lacks a super-powered punch.
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