One Song review

Vocalist Wietse Tanghe sings: “Run for your life / Till you die / Till I die / We all die”, as he jogs on a treadmill. In the bleachers behind the band is a quartet of fans in outsize football scarves, egging them on and dancing along.

Next to them sits the band’s coach, mumbling incomprehensibly into a loudspeaker. Performer Milan Schudel, dressed in a gleaming white cheerleader’s outfit, completes the scene, waving his pompoms and spinning like a dervish.

Every time they reach the end of the song, they circle back to the start. There is no let-up, no breathing space. Though that’s not to say that the show is devoid of texture – far from it. A metronome is used to set the pace: sometimes it slows things down, sometimes it accelerates them. Sometimes the music is rockier, sometimes mellower, although it always snaps back.

This is the fourth part of NTGent’s Histoire(s) du Théâtre series, in which performance-makers reflect on theatre as a form. Warlop’s hour-long show transcends the gig-theatre format to capture what it is to be alive. The immense energy of the piece is tempered with a sense of the things that we can’t outrun, the burdens we carry and the hurdles we face, as well as commentary on belonging, being part of a band, a team, a community.

Warlop continually injects new elements. The performers are pelted with ping-pong balls; water drips from the ceiling making the stage more hazardous. The physical toll on them is visible. Their clothes darken with sweat, their breathing becomes ragged. But they never stop, they keep going, keep playing.

Though repetition is central to the concept, it’s not gruelling to watch. Rather, it is exhilarating, a dazzling feat of physicality and, as the fatigue starts to show on the performers’ faces and the strain becomes more pronounced, it is increasingly affecting, too.

One Song is at Leeds Playhouse from 19-20 October as part of Transform 23, and at Battersea Arts Centre, London from October 24-26. For full touring and ticket information click here