✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper plus a pair of free tickets to a London event sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • About us
  • Tickets
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Tickets
Get our exclusive content
+ choose a pair of free tickets from our edit of favourite events
Dance

Jacky Lansley: About Us Review ★★★★★

On 21 Mar 18, 19:30 Dur.: 1 hour no interval

About Us, a collaborative mixed media performance directed by Jacky Lansley, had its London premiere in Bethnal Green after a gestation period lasting almost two years

By Teresa Guerreiro on 5/2/2018

About Us
About Us
Jacky Lansley: About Us Review 2 Jacky Lansley: About Us Review Teresa Guerreiro
About Us is a well-meaning, but at times frankly perplexing work that purports to explore the extraordinary and the everyday by means of movement, film and a soundscape that includes the spoken word.


The outcome of a collaborative effort led by veteran choreographer and performance artist Jacky Lansley, About Us is a succession of seemingly unconnected fragments which take place on a rectangular floor surrounded on all four sides by an audience sitting at the same level, as if in a private home where a space had been cleared in the living room for post prandial revelries.


TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
Here a number of performers move, sometimes in synch with film of themselves projected on the long walls, at others stopping to watch it. They carry out everyday tasks: one almost obsessively carrying a folding chair around, another simulating bowling a cricket ball, yet another emoting as if in the throes of a nervous breakdown.


You hope at some point it’ll all evolve into some kind of narrative or at least show some internal cohesion. Sadly, it doesn’t.


There’s a puzzling sub-cabaret turn, when to a projection of a glittering disco ball one of the performers sings a song and addresses the audience directly. We’re all asked to switch sides to no particular purpose.


Then comes audience participation: we’re asked to wave our arms about as directed by the performers, in a scene vaguely reminiscent of Sunday afternoon entertainment in an old people’s home.


The end of About Us nails its political colours to the mast with a series of platitudinous statements seemingly unrelated with what went before. It tells us Brexit may affect the arts; there are 128,000 homeless children in the UK; elephants are a threatened species because of poaching (cue performers marching around with swinging arms, letting out strident imitations of elephant trumpeting); African green parrots ditto, because they’re being caught for pets (cue squawking and flapping of arms).


There is no doubting the sincerity of this group of performers and their director. However, to ram home to an audience the point that ‘the personal is political’ they need a much stronger, more articulate and frankly much savvier statement.


by Teresa Guerreiro

What Jacky Lansley: About Us Review
Where Oxford House Theatre, Bethnal Green, London, E2 6HG | MAP
Nearest tube Bethnal Green (underground)
When On 21 Mar 18, 19:30 Dur.: 1 hour no interval
Price £12 (concessions £10)
Website Click here to book via the Oxford Theatre website

You might also like
Free for Members
Up to £61
Angus Yellowlees (Simon) and Josh Williams (Joe) in Touching The Void. Photo by Michael Wharley
Booking closed
19 Nov 19 - 29 Feb 20

Touching the Void

See all tickets

Most popular

UK Disneyland? Paramount Theme Park, Kent. Photo: Paramount
Everything you need to know about UK Disneyland, Kent's London Resort
Ring in 2020: London's Best New Year's Eve Parties
Ring in 2020: London's Best New Year’s Eve parties to book early
Things to do in London this weekend: 13 – 15 December
Things to do in London this weekend: 13-15 December

Editor's Picks

Motionhouse: Charge, photo Dan Tucker
Motionhouse: Charge Review
Protein, May Contain Food, photo Chris Nash
Luca Silvestrini's Protein, May Contain Food, May Contain You
Shechter II, SHOW, photo Gabrielle Zucca
Shechter II, SHOW Review

Jacky Lansley

About Us

Oxford House Theatre

Jreena Green

Fergus Early

Esther Huss

Vincent Ebrahim

Ursula Early

Ingrid Mackinnon

  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs

BECOME A MEMBER TODAY
TO CONTINUE TO ENJOY CULTURE WHISPER

You’ve clicked to view the best of our content that we
save exclusively for our members.

If you liked what you saw, subscribe from just £15 and get
unlimited access to our unique culture service as well as
all of our membership benefits.

BECOME A MEMBER ×

Want a pair of free tickets every month?
Upgrade to Gold Whisper now
and save 10% with GOLD10.
Become a premium member today.

UPGRADE NOW ×