Fresh from Edinburgh Fringe success, Bangers arrives in east London via the Arcola Theatre. Touted as a ‘lyrical love letter to UK Garage’, Bangers weaves a tale of a young couple, Aria and Clef navigating life, love and music in London.
Directed by Chris Sonnex, it starts with great energy with the very impressive resident DJ and narrator (Tanya-Loretta Dee) playing some garage ‘bangers’ and getting the audience hyped and singing along. But for me, from then on, the gist of the story is missed, largely due to the poor sound quality of the mics.
It was difficult to hear what was being said and so the ensuing story was a little jumbled and hard to work out, but touched on themes of the past affecting the present, sexual abuse and homelessness. Both leads played different characters in parts – and it wasn’t always obvious when this change occurred.
I think a simple costume change in parts would have helped immensely. Honestly, as an original garage head who actually lived it in the 90s, the significance of UK garage in this show was kinda lost on me, and the power it had back then, was missing. It wasn’t what I expected from a ‘garage musical’.
With the negatives out of the way, a huge Afridiziak shout-out goes to both Danusia Samal (Aria) who stars and also wrote the play and Jim Caesar who plays Clef. They both gave extremely high-quality musical and comedy performances – I’m predicting big things from them both in the future. You know what they say -true talent can’t hide. The elements of the story didn’t make complete sense but at least it finished just as it started, with great energy and went out with a ‘bang’.
NEED TO KNOW: Bangers plays at the Arcola Theatre until 10 Aug 2024 | Access £10 tickets using the code BANGERSDBM10.
- Post-show Q&A on 27 July 2024
- Bangers after-party on 2 Aug 2024
- Cardboard Citizens: Cardboard Collective – Cardboard Collective is a new boundary-breaking music and live events programme for young people aged 16- 25. They will be performing after Bangers on 29 July and 6 August 2024.
