Never Did Me Any Harm

Every now and then you see a show that makes you look at the theatre differently. This brilliantly non-linear, stunningly lit and beautifully frank concoction of dance, narrative mime and documentary theatre is one such show.

Never Did Me Any Harm is a dazzlingly impactful cross section of post-millennial parental paranoia. Lifting off from Christos Tsiolkas' incendiary novel The Slap, the seven-strong cast of actors and dancers drill deep into the myriad mindfucks of modern child rearing. Exploring punishment, provocation and generational schism, this almost Brechtian sequence of vignettes is, by turns, erudite, hilarious and unnerving.

From the superbly executed opening sequence, (with its rectilinear lighting effects and fluttering minimalist soundtrack), Never Did Me Any Harm rivets you to your seat. By welding the abstract language of dance to the directness of confessional monologue, and by employing a movement palette that borrows heavily from mime, director Kate Champion and devisers Force Majeure have created a blend that constantly switches your emotional and narrative focus. In lesser hands this would be a bothersome exercise. With these guys it's a daringly funny and entertaining crash course in contemporary parenthood.

Never Did… is also one of the most beautifully lit shows this reviewer has seen in a while. Congrats go to Geoff Cobham, whose superbly conceptualised lighting completes the utterly beguiling spell that this show casts. Sheer magic. Period.

Season finished