Review – Stationary Excess, Underbelly

Spin classes are tough when all you have to do is cycle. It’s difficult to imagine how challenging it must be to do one whilst simultaneously changing into a cocktail dress, downing a bottle of champagne, eating a full pack of chocolate hob nobs and delivering a half hour monologue about a man you’re in love with.

Cycling on a stationary bike throughout, Jessica Latowick’s performance is certainly impressive, but once you get beyond the gimmic – for gimmic the bike clearly is – Tim Cowbury’s text is revealed to be lightweight, stretching too thin what would have been a nice idea for a ten minute sketch or, properly developed, perhaps even a moving hour-long play.

2 stars

NB. It’s only fair to note that I probably didn’t see the best ever performance of this show, as technical problems meant it went on without sound