This is a performance art piece featuring two dudes with beards, Sadiq and David, played by Sadiq Ali and David Banks, who re-enact a life of perpetual male violence. As this performance was coming from a contemporary dance studio, I was expecting a combination of dance and movie stunts turned into grace, but this is not what it is. This is two men going through some stunt moves with a few energetic push-ups and rollabouts in a series of repetitive scenes.
David has been an actual stuntman, in a straight-to-video action movie called ‘Maximum Impact’. On the basis of this, they perform a drama of an action film shoot-out, endlessly recurring so it is all shoot-out, stab-out and a beat-out. Both are dressed in jeans and vests, as David pretends to shoot Sadiq who falls over feigning death; as he gets up, they both start laughing. The second scene varies only in that Sadiq puts on Keana Reeves Matrix- type goggles and a long overcoat, shoots David, who falls over, they both start laughing as he gets up. Scene three, another shooting, but dialogue is added: ‘See you in Hell, Motherfucker’ as one of them shoots.
It livens up when the men start talking to us telling us their stories in short alternate bursts. David recounts his first fight as a mixed martial arts performer, how at 15 years old, he won a fight, terrified and trembling but felt ‘a hundred feet tall’. He beats up a couple of blokes in a kebab shop who have called him derogatory names and gets arrested for his trouble. Sadiq tells us how he doesn’t like to fight, ‘I’m scared to get hit’, but prefers to defend himself with words. He likes to see people get angry with his wind-ups as it makes him feel superior. He was called a faggot walking with his boyfriend, a verbal assault which changed him, ‘This moment I wanted blood’. He imagines a fantasy in which he becomes a gay hero beating up all the abusers, dying for the cause… …this part was actually funny.
The theme is movingly thought through and performed: Two gay men who have had a tough time because of anti-gay and racist behaviour, and how they have come to terms with themselves and societal reaction; how attempted suicide is the way out for one man, but trust between each man comes to the performers. Stunt fighting as dance is a good idea, but they fail to push it to its aesthetic limits. Somehow, despite the well-intentioned and poignant theme, and the energy of the performers, it was not enough to enthral me.
Director: Peter Lannon
Cast: Sadiq Ali, David Banks
Lighting: Michaella Fee
Duration: 65 minutes
Until: Touring until 18 October 2025