A silly, spooky alien invasion to please all ages
Have you ever wanted to experience aliens invading Earth? To see a man abducted and dissected? To stand in the crowd as the first extra terrestrial emerges from its ship, only to be blown up with a firework? Envahisseurs (Invaders) encapsulates all this in a creepily comedic 25 minute performance.
Envahisseurs (Invaders) is being staged part of the 17th annual Manipulate Festival in Edinburgh, which celebrates performances of visual theatre, puppetry and animation from all over the world. It’s an intimately staged show – a couple of lamps, a couple of briefcases on a small table – but it has infinite imagination within these instruments.
Olivier Rannou is the master of ceremonies, greeting the audience at the door with a cold stare and a physicality reminiscent of Richard O’Brien as Riff Raff (quite fitting given that Evnahisseurs is inspired by the same 50’s B movies parodied in the Rocky Horror Picture Show). His presence is unsettling, but the performance has just enough knowing glances to the audience to bring warmth as he enacts chaos onto the world of the table. He is both actor and director, controlling the entire show and its array of props, puppets, and visual gags. Every time you think he can’t possibly have something else hidden in a jacket pocket, there it is! It’s also perfectly timed along to a tiny retro TV screen, that scores the performance and adds comic punctuation to each section.
The show has already toured round various stages and festivals in Europe and is almost completely non-verbal, except for the clips from old American B-movies. The mix of mime, puppetry, and good old fashioned messy gross fun is more than enough to keep audiences entertained for the entire run time and leave you wanting more.
My main takeaway from the show was simply how much I would have loved to have taken my niece to see it. Although it’s not necessarily a show for children, but it’s short and sweet, totally silly and a perfect piece of light entertainment to make you chuckle and wonder.