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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
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Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Description: A combination of digital and live performance, exploring responsibility and guilt through short bursts of participatory adventures. Devised by Slung Low.
Trains: Tube/BR: Barbican/Moorgate 
Phone: 0845120 7550
Website: www.barbican.org.uk
Learning to fly: A woman tries to reconstruct the life of her wartime fighter pilot grandfather in Helium
Site-specific theatre pioneers Punchdrunk have challenged audiences to reconsider their viewing experience. Wandering through performance spaces and mingling with loitering actors, we the paying customers are no longer passive consumers.
Slung Low, this year’s winners of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for experimental work, elaborate engagingly on these themes. Yet ultimately Helium proves stronger on the theory than any dramatic substance.
The Pit has been transformed into a series of large boxes that we enter singly to encounter performers or recorded voices. Thrill as we do at this novel combination of solitude and proximity to the action, the narrative is overly elliptical and, at just 30 minutes, frustratingly truncated. Given time, we might come to care about the enigmatic life of wartime fighter pilot Max, which his granddaughter attempts to piece together from his diary as the old man lies dying. However, the gaps between the dots we are asked to join are too great, and being given a (partially) explanatory booklet when we exit feels like a cop-out.
Helium, until 20 September (0207 638 8891).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
