Mr Burn is bringing the party to Glastonbury. Presented by Ramshaclicious, a theatre company that provides subversive, contemporary theatrical experiences, everything quickly descends into chaos, presumably by design, as increasingly disintegrating bananas are thrown between Mr Burn and the late evening crowd gathered in front of the Glebe’s open-air stage.
There are excited yelps from the crowd as pieces of mushy banana fly in their direction – and this is only the beginning. Never mind Guns n Roses on the Pyramid Stage, this is possibly the highest energy performance at Glastonbury Festival this weekend – and more chaotic than Lana Del Rey’s late entrance, but in a good way.
Mr Burn brings not just entertainment but sustenance too setting a child loose running through the crowd wearing a sombrero topped with tortilla chips and her sister running behind her after having a full jar of salsa emptied by Mr Burn into her bare hand. The crowd parts like the Red Sea, laughing at the spectacle but also in fear they may get covered in the salsa that is splattering from her hand in all directions.
When Mr Burn has had enough of the audience participation element he dispatches the children from the stage with a fire extinguisher. Like much of the festival’s offerings in the Theatre and Circus fields, Mr Burn is maybe more open to the chaos he’s bringing – and the crowd are too.
Every moment is lapped up by the audience which increases in size as the set progresses. They are rewarded for their support with a bottle of real tequila Mr Burn passes around the crowd (or at least it seemed real, the bottle was very quickly emptied.)
It reaches the point where you can’t tell what is constructed madness and what is genuinely going wrong. Chaotic, mad and fantastically addictive.
