Review: Chunky Jewellery (Tramway)

Autobiographical dance comedy has its charms

When I hear a title like Chunky Jewellery, from Barrowland Ballet, my Gen Z mind races thinking about the kind of chunky jewellery I know. The likes of Tatty Divine, big plastic bananas and moustaches dangling from wrists and ears, and the millennial celebration of all things bright and tacky that was slowly phased out to make way for more conservative trends. Then I see an array of big-beaded necklaces, the kind you would find in a charity shop, and I am reminded that I need to spend less time on TikTok. For co-creators and performers Jude Williams and Natasha Gilmore, big, ungainly jewellery is a metaphor for women fading into the background with age, and needing anything to help them stand out.

Photo Credit: Brian Hartley

That need to stand out isn’t just in the jewellery either. Their costumes comprise spandex body suits, layered with bright, sparkly dresses and hoodies. It’s a dopamine-dressed car crash of incongruity, exuberance and a hint of self-deprecation. It sets the tone for the performance, trying to make sense, get your attention, and be true to themselves and their experiences. As you would expect from Barrowland Ballet, this is not done just through theatre but dance as well. They both play vulnerable, messy characters, but their movement is precise, practised, and expert. They elicit soft “oooh”s from the audience and a sense of affection for two performers who are clearly seasoned professionals.

Another way they invite the audience in is with the blurred line between character and performer that devised theatre allows. Creativity and enthusiasm overflow at the edges of the performance. Both of them are trying to figure out how to stage the events of the past year of their lives, and much of the humour revolves around this meta conversation. This will amuse fellow theatre-makers, but doesn’t leave much comedy for the rest of us. The larger issue is that, even though the scenes they recreate from their lives are often moving and well-performed, they lack a central idea, something to draw the whole performance together. It may be that that is the point, that a year of trauma and turbulence doesn’t necessarily give you a lesson to learn. But that in itself is a thesis, and in Chunky Jewellery, none comes through.

Even so, the final scene does leave a fantastic final impression. The best moment of the performance is at the end, when Williams ceremonially places necklaces on Gilmore, each honouring a different title: “Mother of Frieda”, “Inventor of Games”, “Keeper of Secrets”. As the beads start to pile on, they become as burdensome as they are celebratory. It is a wonderful moment, although it does leave the performance a little lopsided. Up until this point, there has been equal focus on both Williams and Gilmore, but this final moment absolutely belongs to Gilmore. Moments like these stand out, but overall, their performance doesn’t make as much of a statement as their accessories. Three stars.

Whispers from the Crowd: "I thought it was amazing, poingnant, and superb."

Chunky Jewellery has completed its run at Tramway, and will play at the Edinburgh Fringe at Assembly Rooms at 13:30 until the 24th of August