Batacuda at the Fringe Club, ends today. Batacuda, the Australian drum and juggling act, is in-your-face entertainment which demands full audience participation, lots of shouting, and provides a bloody good laugh after a long day.
On opening night the five-man group didn't even give the audience time to finish their drinks before the show began. Instead they invaded the bar and insisted everybody present followed them in a conga into the street. At first the crowd simply smirked nervously and let them march out alone.
They were having none of this. 'You think we are joking don't you?' one of the group leered threateningly, and before we knew it, 50 people were following five men in ridiculous, stripy clown outfits with drums strapped to their waists out into Central.
We ended up in the theatre eventually, and were treated to what one of the group calls 'gratuitous juggling' with shoes borrowed from a member of the audience. This lasted just long enough before the chief of the group, a charismatic chap with a remarkable waxed moustache, demanded volunteers for a chair balancing trick.
This was probably the most difficult set piece in an evening that zoomed along, combining remarkable drumming with juggling and chat. There were plenty of moments when it was impossible not to laugh, not just out loud but loudly, at the silliness of it all.
A word to the wise: with Batacuda, it is better to join in than to wait until they force you. Nothing truly awful happened to any of the victims: one man spent three minutes with a flower in his mouth while juggling clubs spun past his head, and a woman had to dance with two of the drummers then choose between them after a drum duel fought in her honour. But apart from that, pretty painless stuff.
