Red Bastard @ Pleasance Courtyard

Notorious audience tormenter Red Bastard smashes preconceived notions of love and lying in this highly interactive, confessional show that’s deeply gratifying to everyone’s inner sadist. In his trademark red balloon suit, Bastard goes behind the proverbial (and literal) curtain to unmask everyone (including himself) of their romantic sins through a provocative game of self-exposure.

Participation is not optional; the best part is everyone gleefully partakes despite its ruinous potential to their real lives. Probing with surgical precision, he affirms the extensive conundrums to the rules of love, offered up entirely by the audience. Have you ever cheated? Was that considered cheating? Writhing and wiggling, Bastard licks his fingers in delight as he debunks and ‘eats up’ the audience’s lies, one by one.

While his scintillating execution of words, movement, facial expressions are a pure pleasure to watch, it is actually Bastard’s incredible manipulative power over the audience that gives the show its vitality. Extraordinarily suspenseful throughout, there's also a romantic and sometimes apologetic tone – especially when the man behind the mask shares his own personal anecdotes. By show's end, when all has been revealed (and no-one has been absolved) one can't help but sense that Lie With Me is not only clever and topical, but also deeply important.

---

Red Bastard: Lie With Me, Pleasance Courtyard (Two), until 27 Aug, 9.30pm, £9-11