Aggressive and friendly, dangerous and safe, ad hoc and practised – Dirty Tattooed Circus Bastards toys with its audience using punk sensibilities, comedic timing, and a box of sharp implements, diablos, loud music and seasoned circus skills.
Martin Mor and Logy Logan are the Dirty Tattooed Circus Bastards in question. Mor may be the elder statesman here, with a career started in circus and erupting into comedy for almost 40 years, but these two Irishmen are a practised pairing, exchanging juggling clubs as deftly as mutual comedy roasts. There’s a necessary trust between them and a combative stance that bonds them and challenges us as they play with ideas of safety and danger with boisterous exchanges about their environment. Stage lights are dazzlingly at stage eye-level, a machete and enlarged pizza-cutter are juggled with other implements, and the performance space seems even smaller when the bull whips come out and crack at the boundaries.
It’s hard to tell if the show is underrehearsed for the venue (this being opening night of the run) or presented that way for gonzo dramatic effect. There is an accidental drop and unlike some of the other circus performers in town this pair don’t make it look easy, but they do make it look impressive and even scary when they up the ante to re enact a stunt. It’s compelling when tension builds both comedically and with danger.
Mor and Logan are punk in their performance and funny in their bones, playing with audience comfort balance at times as much as they play with the balance of their own props. There’s a physical risk for them in this show, so why not for the audience too? It’s a roller coaster ride crossed with a ghost train, with jumps and thrills and laughter release, and Dirty Tattooed Circus Bastards at the helm.
The Bunker @ Fool’s Paradise, 17 May 2024
https://www.brightonfringe.org/events/dirty-tattooed-circus-bastards
