Scary Gorgeous

RashDash artistic directors Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen have created a no holds barred mash-up of music, dance and performance which attempts to explore ideas of teenage sexuality.

Fronting a band and lacing killer vocals with even sharper heels, Abbi and Helen are two sassy, sexually precocious girls. Interweaving their story with a young couple, Aidan and Sarah, they look at the effects of pornography on adolescent identity and psychology through a brash, unfocused lens.

The band, made especially for this show (although they're so tight, you wouldn’t know it), occasionally chip in as scene extras. While the story is flabby, the music is punchy, focused, cool and probably the best thing in this show.

But in such an intimate space, it’s easy to feel bombarded – not only by the sheer force of sound but also the non-stop theatrical whistles and buzzers that Greenland and Goalen have thrown into this soup of a show. The movement sequences are impressive but a bit too "interpretive dance" in style and the interaction between the characters suffers from a script much weaker than the lyrics of the band.

There’s a lot of talent on offer here but a firmer editorial hand is needed and, in the middle of the whirlwind, the basic backbone of this story becomes fractured and eventually lost.