Lucy Hopkins @ Heroes, The Hive
Lucy Hopkins has many worlds in her hands in her new show
This is a style of show that often has you giggling from nervousness and bafflement just as much as from timing or wordplay. So go into Lucy Hopkins’ Powerful Women Are About with this in mind, and you’ll experience an hour of transcendent clowning featuring full-body theremin playing and some immersive audience participation for a lucky few.
The Universe itself is split into two opposing halves. Hopkins’ show is a sacred and sequinned ritual which aims to reunite those two halves and redress the balance of power. A dancing goddess, reminiscent of the great Kate Bush, tells us tales of how things go wrong when things go out of balance, punctuated with highly self-conscious mime and character play.
Hopkins is in control throughout, one moment channelling the Cosmos through her hands, the next mocking the idea of Performance Art in which everything Means Something. A slow-burner of a show – though one well worth seeing for its euphoric finale alone.
Lucy Hopkins: Powerful Women Are About, Heroes at The Hive (Bunka), 3-27 Aug (not 9 & 16), 5pm, £5/PWYW