Greenwich Fair

After a showery lunchtime, the weather cleared and I walked down to Greenwich for the second day of the Greenwich Fair (didn't go yesterday).

Unfortunately, the performance I particularly wanted to see - The Man Who Lost His Buttons (a pole acrobatics production next to the Cutty Sark) was cancelled due to injury of the performer. The rest of the Fair was a bit disappointing. Not nearly as good as last year. Many of the performance based things were pretty small-scale, low-budget and a sometimes even a bit amateurish looking. Particularly in St Alfege Park, where there was nothing to compare with last year's "The Iron Man". The sideshow style entertainments were also mostly on the small and intimate side. There wasn't really anything large-scale and generally accessible like Guixot de 8's interactive dynamic sculptures for example, except the rather tame looking mini maze 'El Laberint' ("Test your ingenuity and skill in this playful Catalan Labyrinth in which there are many gateways and pathways, through which you can create your own journey by solving puzzles, conundrums and calculations which open the doors.").

Saw all or part of (programme descriptions in italics):

• Falling Up (Mimbre) - OK all-female street dance but rather inane ("Athlete, performer or model, there is no such thing as a perfect body, but each one of us is extraordinary. The UK’s leading all female street theatre company celebrates the beautiful reality of everybody and what we’re capable of through acrobatics, theatre and dance").
  Gave-up after about 10 mins and walked around to St Alfege Park.
• Skryf - robot tricycle that slowly writes text in sand as it travels along the footpaths around the park ("Gijs van Bon’s ingenious art installation moves through St Alfege Park, leaving famous lines from Ted Hughes, Charles Dickens and GDIF2012 artists, launching Word on the Street and celebrating Greenwich’s history of literature").
• Symphony (nabokov) - three piece band and some actors singing a slightly naff 'boy doesn't meet girl' story ("Theatre collides with the energy of a live gig as three of the most stunning writers in Britain today combine to fuse the rhythm of words with the rhythm of music"). 
• White Suit (Helen Chadwick Song Theatre) - all about land mines and the arms trade. Way too worthy, and a bit cringe making in a 'Playaway' kind of way ("I'm a landmine and I'm really good at exploding"). ("Combining close harmony singing with larger than life physical performance, White Suit tells the story of a landmine survivor. This surreal piece of theatrical storytelling features singing armaments and dancing arms dealers in a highly stylised song-theatre performance.")
  I abandoned this half-way through and walked back to the Royal Naval College site.
• Spun Productions (StopGAP) - amusing and energetic dance ("Wanna be a celebrity? Get yourself on Spun TV! Full of surprises and subversive humour, Spun Productions follows the rise and fall of a celebrity wannabe. Performed by one of the UK’s leading integrated dance companies.").
  Entertaining to begin with, but got a bit tiresome after a while. I moved on after about 15 mins.
• Thingamabob (Pangottic) - clever and fun ("Gadgets come alive in this performance that might have been dreamt up by Heath Robinson! In the tradition of sideshow entertainment, step up and be amazed by this highly original devised, ball slinging, self-exploding contraption!").
  The best of the small scale shows.
• Carrousel des Moutons (D’irque & Fien) - ("In this stunning circus performance you can travel back to that magical childhood place accompanied by a playful gravity defying piano and entrancing acrobatic balance performances.") see below.

The best by far was the Carrousel des Moutons. Fun, clever, enchanting, and a little bit thrilling (that piano does twirl around quite fast at times). Who would have thought that an acrobat on a tilting spinning piano could be so engaging - for almost an hour. Great use of audience participation (at one point a little girl was persuaded to sit on a broomstick that had been stuck into the piano stool, and got carried around (fairly slowly)), and there was a good rapport. I was pleased I waited for this - it made me smile, I laughed out-loud, and applauded spontaneously. There should have been more like this in the Fair, but actually this was good enough to make it worthwhile, for me.

After standing for so long I really needed to sit down, do went to the Rose & Crown for a pint of IPA, but it was really dead there, so went to the Prince of Greenwich instead.