Review: BLUE MAN GROUP: BLUEVOLUTION, London Palladium

Describing a Blue Man Group show after just leaving one to a person who has never seen them may feel like sticking jelly to a wall: messy, futile and you might be feeling a bit sticky.

Now, that's not to say it is beyond the ken of this man to describe what actually happens. Three alien-looking indigo humanoids beat drums, smack plumbing tubes and pull audience members onto stage for amusing set pieces. There's paint and lots of it. Some is poured onto drums and banged hard into a beautifully lit vertical cascade. Some in pellet form is thrown from one Blue Man to another who catches it in their mouth and sprays it onto a board. Some is splashed around the front of the stage (those in the middle front rows of the stalls are given plastic smocks). Oh, and there's rock music loud enough to blast us back into the Stone Age.

Since forming in 1987, Blue Man Group have performed internationally but are more well known in their homeland thanks to a residency at Las Vegas' Luxor Hotel since 2000 and a run of over 17,000 shows in New York's Astor Place Theatre, an off-Broadway venue they bought in 2001. Although they haven't been to the UK in fifteen years, they have had a Berlin residency since 2006.

There's a perfectly good English word to describe this American outfit: bonkers. Their innocent and blank looks are belied by their mischievous antics. The sublime clowning enhances many of the stranger things we see, the eyebrow-less innocent blue faces conveying a series of highly relatable emotions. The audience are folded into this experience throughout: latecomers are serenaded, two are randomly picked for a hilariously awkward and artificial date and one is taken backstage to be (apparently) hung upside down and sprayed with paint while we watch on camera. At points, we are asked to stand, clap and throw our arms in the air. 

Despite proclaiming itself "a whole new beat", Bluevolution has not changed massively from what was seen in its 2005-2007 run at the New London Theatre (now called the Gillian Lynne Theatre). There's no interval this time around but the finale still features miles of tissue paper albeit from a different direction. The Rock Concert Instruction Manual is back, inviting punters to rise up from their seats and punch the air and there's plenty of their signature silliness.

It may all seem a bit childish to some but that's all part of how this show connects with audiences and how it has built an international fanbase over the last thirty years. Besides, London is never short of Shakespeare, Chekov or Pinter runs which can help edify and entertain your next batch of dinner party guests.

Blue Man Group continue at London Palladium until 29 September then goes on tour to Salford, Edinburgh and Bristol, finishing on Sunday 20 October.

Photo credit: Blue Man Group

To post a comment, you must register and login.