Raucously funny and endlessly inventive, Lecoq-trained company Voloz Collective delight and stun with live original music and virtuosic acrobatics in this fast-paced whodunnit. Following a completely sold out Edinburgh run, Voloz Collective (winner of Theatre Weekly’s Best Fringe Debut) brings The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much to The Pleasance London.
Wes Anderson meets Hitchcock meets spaghetti western in this multi award-winning, intercontinental, inter-genre, cinematic caper of accusations, accidents and accents.
Roger, a Frenchman in 1960’s New York, has followed the same routine for years, until a minor delay saves him from an explosion. Throwing his ordered world into chaos, Roger chases his would-be assassins around the globe. Winner of the Carol Tambour Incentive Award, The Les Enfants Terribles and Greenwich Partnership Award, The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much is delightfully unbridled, immediate and visceral, igniting audiences’ imaginations with a whirlwind of images and sounds. The minimalist physical style of Voloz Collective makes the show accessible for people aged 8 to 98.
The physicality and movement of different sections of The Man Who are influenced by different cinematic styles. Opening with a film-noir-esque feel, the structure then transitions into the fast-paced physicality of a Matrix or Bond film, before seeing influences from classic and contemporary westerns, including the films of the Coen Brothers and Sergio Leone. For film buffs, the visual storytelling of Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino is evident throughout.
Although set in the 1960s, The Man Who toys with historical truths by subtly inserting fictional characters into actual historical events, including classic American advertising campaigns, cold war conspiracies, and even a Beatles song.
Voloz Collective comments, While comedy today is increasingly text-based, we are excited to bring audiences to the roots of vaudevillian physical comedy with Voloz’s own contemporary cinematic twist. What draws people so often to film and TV is the speed and ingenuity with which one image transforms into the next. With this show, we transpose this visual dexterity of film into a theatrical language, teasing out moments of poetry and hilarity at breakneck speed!
The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much is at The Pleasance London Tuesday 4th – Friday 7th October 2022
