Set Fire To Everything!

Venue: Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Suffolk

Company: RashDash Theatre

This review first appeared on The Public Reviews website 

RashDash's Helen Goalan and Abbi Greenland

There’s something very evocative about a solitary yellow balloon floating silently up into a steel-grey sky. When realisation dawns that the balloon is meant to represent someone’s hopes and dreams, the analogy becomes even more poignant.

RashDash’s Helen Goalan and Abbi Greenland brought a frenetic piece to this year’s Latitude Festival; Set Fire to Everything is an exploration of how chores both large and small dominate the central character’s (Goalen) life. Her opponent is brought to life by Greenland, resplendent in a Post-It Note dress and backed by three mad musicians (the duo’s longer musical collaborators, Not Now Bernard).

As the pressure mounts, her adversary takes the opportunity to clamber up onto the roof of the portable set and release yet another balloon, each ambition slipping out of the reach of Goalen’s character.

Set Fire to Everything has no narrative as such but it does have a story. As the pressure grows on the protagonist, a full-on fist fight ensues between her and her angst personified. The battle continues across the performance space, each getting the upper hand as the other weakens while the band add a raucous soundtrack to the proceedings.

Goalen and Greenland bring an anarchic humour to the quirky piece, which, while only 20 minutes long, will certainly resonate with anyone whose life’s commitments threaten to overcome them.

A fun and extraordinarily relevant theatrical experience.

PAUL COUCH