Bourgeois and Maurice in Insane Animals at HOME Manchester. Image by Drew Forsyth
Bourgeois & Maurice are no strangers to the saviour game. In their 2016 Edinburgh Fringe tour de force How to Save the World Without Really Trying, the self-described ‘drag aliens singing about politics’ laid out a semi-plausible plan for staving off the apocalypse – which has, of course, gone entirely unheeded. Four years on, the doomsday clock has ticked that much closer to midnight and B&M (also known as George Heyworth and Liv Morris) are up for another hail mary. “We want to help the human race,” they say, even if “we’re pretty sure you’re the next dinosaurs.”
The pair’s latest show finds them exploring doomsday and related subjects through new material in an ambitious new form: a full-fledged musical. Insane Animals is running at HOME Manchester, which has funded its development, and it marks an impressive and successful expansion of Bourgeois & Maurice’s sensibility, deftly enhancing their work in a range of ways – visual, narrative, emotional – without losing any of their scabrous charm. It feels epic and homemade, funny and poignant, filthy and heartwarming.
For the unfamiliar, B&M are one of the underground London cabaret scene’s great successes of the past decade, sardonically surveying contemporary human foibles from a deadpan, distanced and determinedly fashion-forward perspective. Bourgeois sings and is sharp and slinky as a stream of iridescent electric eels; beehived, deadpan Maurice plays keyboards and has the vibe of a deep, dark pool, placid on top with quite nasty rocks underneath.
Insane Animals gives the duo fluid personae that let them keep their unholy otherness while working well on the musical stage. They’re variously framing narrators, alien redeemers and local gods – the last role being the one that binds them in to the story’s main plot, which is based on the first known written story, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Working with director Phillip McMahon (of THISISPOPBABY, Panti Bliss’s regular producer), B&M pull off this unexpected foray into ancient Mesopotamian lore with aplomb, balancing the frisson of cabaret with narrative engagement and scaled-up production values.
To make a long epic short, the story sees brutish king Gilgamesh confronting nature-boy Enkidu with unexpected results, including a quest for eternal life. Lockie Chapman (The Overtones) brings an imperious diva intensity to Gilgamesh, laced with pity and fear and animated by his thumping bass voice. Kayed Mohamed-Mason gives Enkidu guileless charm and resolute pride while members of the on-stage band (Emer Dineen, Victoria Falconer, Evie Jones and Jarrad Payne) take other roles.
Meanwhile B&M weave through it all, glittery cuneiform tablets in hand, whether as tongue-in-cheek storytellers, interventionist gods, backing dancers or popcorn-munching onlookers. It’s a bit like Robin Williams’s genie in Aladdin, if Robin Williams’s genie did fisting jokes.
The show plays out with more than a nod at the duo’s cabaret roots. There’s plenty of fun at the expense of the fourth wall, in a register that nimbly seesaws between late-night basement bar and Christmas panto. The old Bistrotheque sensibility is still in place but writ large, with tin-foil-effect set dressing, clever, economical use of colour and fabulous costumes by Julian Smith. Think Brecht with outsized shimmer curtains. Set-pieces range from lucha libre to futuristic brain-probing, with a dash of local Mancunian flavour.
You could quibble about a couple of things. Some cityscape signage didn’t beam as it might have, a coronavirus-shaped open goal was missed and B&M aficionados might pine for more overt engagement with the present day or use of video (very strong suits in the duo’s previous work). But these are side notes.
It’s funny and clever and packs a punch. Snappy, silly, acerbic and sweet, the songs rock along with momentum, whether celebrating sex or summarising all of history, and Falconer’s musical direction ably balances high-energy pop, plaintive violin and eerie Theremin.
And Insane Animals really does touch on the big stuff: the nature of story, ego and fame, scapegoating and violence, queer love and universal death, civilisation and its discontents. It is, as Bourgeois & Maurice claim, “a musical about being human”. With a lot of sequins.
Bourgeois & Maurice: Insane Animals is at HOME Manchester until 14 March 2020. More info here.
