Review: Fimbo Butures’ For you: wicked at VAULT Festival ★★½
Undeniably bold and provocative, Fimbo Butures’ ‘For you: wicked’ feels out of place at VAULT Festival
For you: wicked | VAULT Festival | 28 February – 2 March | From £13
Maya Williams and Lizzy Tan are a magnetic presence on stage in VAULT Festival’s Flair Ground space, but the series of scenes – described in the show blurb as ‘a manic game of dress up’ – fall short in properly unpacking the question of what it means to be ‘Not Safe For Work’.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the format – 60 minutes performed on a fairly traditional stage feels like the wrong setting for these challenging and provocative vignettes, which could no doubt meet with a more receptive audience at, say, the ICA – or even as a short performance at Duckie.
There are some fun and un-forced moments of audience interaction, and undeniably Williams and Tan are excellent performers. Perhaps the sense of missed opportunity is best summed up, however, by the surprisingly unsurprising finale – where we expected fireworks, there was more of a disappointing slow burn.
Less a dance show, more a performance art/movement piece, ‘For you: wicked’ has its moments – but bows out not with a bang, but a whimper.
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