A show with a frisson of fear
This performance was fantastic, mesmerising, captivating and dark. And here’s why, writes Nina King.
The show, a tribute to one of my favourite people, took the audience through his films and TV shows via the music that made them memorable: Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, Elephant Man… Each one brought back the nights, days, weeks and years I spent watching them transfixed.
Revisited was the perfect title because, once again, I was mesmerised by what I was looking at: the overhead lights picking out individuals on the dark stage, that cast them in eerie shadow, the two tiers of musicians and a spectral frisson of fear. Exactly what David would have wanted.
Dark because of the black-clad performers in pin-prick spotlight; the haunting music, the deconstructed songs that made them even more darker and even more David Lynch! Plus, tunes that you didn’t immediately recognise, that made you worry about your own sanity. For the Elephant Man piece the musicians donned Elephant Man masks and watched Serafina Steer play it solo on the harp. Excruciatingly brilliant.
When they did Blue Velvet the singer wore a strange blue dress and had to compete with a guitarist hacking away at his instrument to overwhelm her voice with his screeching, angry strings, while wearing a stocking mask à la Denis Hopper, the film’s psychopath.
I was captivated by being tiptoed through the soundtrack of my own life. Entranced by the surreality of the dream-like vision playing out before my eyes; the not knowing what was coming next. The frisson of fear.
Sometimes I looked around me and saw hundreds of faces all spellbound as much as I was. I was initially surprised at how many young people were there, but then understood why. David Lynch was for everyone and no one. He was niche and I inwardly rejoiced at being a part of that niche crowd.
In Dreams-David Lynch Revisited received a well-deserved standing ovation for a performance I would go to see again and again and again.
