Review Roundup: BLOOD SHOW at Battersea Arts Centre

Experience BLOOD SHOW, featuring Ocean Chillingworth, at Battersea Arts Centre through 23 November.

In a room somewhere, two people are locked in an endless, gory fight. Blood Show fearlessly takes control of violence in a raw, euphoric performance. 

A non-verbal confrontation, Ocean Chillingworth is joined by sparring partner Craig Hambling. Together they embark on a visceral cycle of combat as the ghostly apparition and haunting melodies of Tim Bromage punctuate the punches. 

Blood Show is a choreography between 3 performers and 75 litres of fake blood. It's a call to action to put what's inside on the outside, to allow the mess, defend against a violent gaze and subvert narratives of victimhood.

A testament to endurance, the skilled bouts and blows morph into a triumphant release, heightened by elements of humour in the grand tradition of performative horror. As the audience sees red, Blood Show questions rebirth and how we carry our ghosts with us. 

Blood Show is the largest performance work to date by Ocean Chillingworth, rooted in their lived experience of being non-binary. The second part of The Extinction Trilogy, which Chillingworth describes as “A post-human laugh in the face of impending Armageddon”, three works: Monster Show, Blood Show and Nature Show, explore the human body and its limits for representation. See what the critics are saying...

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Sanjoy Roy, The Guardian: Blood Show is sometimes a little disjointed: the loop of its first half is left dangling and the pacing can be ponderous. Why are the ghost and the fighter sidelined in the second act? Still, its haunting ending, when the room suddenly feels like the inside of someone’s psyche, leaves you with plenty to think about; and if its effects are messy, its means are very clear. Might be best not to go wearing white, though.

Tom Carter, LondonTheatre1: This show is not going to be for everyone. It is distinctly on the performance art side of the theatre/performance art coin, but if you peer into a piece that does not give you easy answers but makes you think you will be nudged in some very interesting directions then this show will do it for you.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out:  Meanwhile the ponchos offer an expectation of titillation and viscera that isn’t really met – certainly it is very late on before there’s even the slightest chance you might need to wear one. And it’s worth noting that this sort of repeated-with-a-twist style of work is very much redolent of the aforementioned Forced Entertainment, who do this thing with a fair bit more vigour, clarity and humour. However: there’s something undeniably compelling about the images Chillingworth has conjured. In particular, the final scene in which the ghost paces the theatre as the lights fade and Martha Wainwright’s ‘Bloody Mother f-ing Asshole’ rings out is evocative and beautiful… whatever the hell it’s supposed to mean.

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