Blood Show review- THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Ocean Chillingworth in Blood Show. Photograph: Kirsten Mcternan
We enter, with plastic ponchos ready… are we ready though?
75 litres of fake splatter and gore is about to unfurl. The show is in the round. There’s nowhere for the performers to hide. We’re greeted with a square, white carpet with a potted tree in the centre, a coffee urn and three characters: one ghost (Tim Bromage in a white sheet with holes cut out for the eyes), Craig Hambling (painted in and wearing white boilersuit) and Ocean Chillingworth; bathed in blood wearing a white playsuit. Chillingworth is garishly draped on a plush, white armchair whilst Bromage and Hambling wait to start their procession.
Bromage oscillates between folk songs and erie renditions of La Roux’s In for the Kill which allows the audience to reset as Chillingworth and Hambling begin their violent yet comical duet. The pair fight, punching, kicking and even bite each other (with the occasional hair pull) ending with Chillingworth being viciously strangled and then assembled into an awkward supine position. The audience is drawn into this forever-loop of brutality, each time becoming a little more humorous, light and somewhat childlike. The once white carpet becomes a tapestry of bloody footprints and unidentifiable patterns. A work of art birthed from violence.
Craig Hambling and Ocean Chillingworth in Blood Show. Photograph: Kirsten Mcternan
The second half is a solo performed by Chillingworth with propositions of fake self harm/ferocity. From fake nosebleeds with the aid of the coffee urn (of course filled with blood) to fake bullets and slashings, the cacophony of sadism invites us to laugh and relive all of the epic action and war movie deaths in real time without the cinematic flair. Chillingworth spits blood and throws themself repeatedly to the floor. An exorcism of sorts; almost if they are purging what needs to be revealed about the violence experienced. Chillingworth hugs Bromage; a gesture that we need to embrace our ghosts.
The show ends with Hambling handing Chillingworth buckets of blood as they cover the carpet. It becomes red in its entirety. Both leave as Bromage waits ominously as the lights go dark. No bows and no happily ever afters.
Blood Show is a messy reminder that violence is so common and predictable that it's almost laughable. It's a prompt to all that the work we need in order to break cycles takes boldness and an awareness of our patterns in order to break them. If not, there will continue to be more blood, fake and real, on and off stage.
Blood Show is at Battersea Arts Centre, London, until 23 November.