JADAR

★★★★☆

One of the first events of HOME’s Push Festival 2025, Bad Science, is directed by Giulia Grillo and Rosa Hallam Fryer, produced by Switch_MCR, a Manchester based theatre company founded in 2018 by Royal Exchange Young Company graduates.

PUSH Festival is HOME Manchester’s “biennial celebration of North West creative talent”, giving the city plenty of exciting opportunities to see lots of new vibrant work across stages, screens and artistic spaces. Switch_MCR’s new show, Bad Science, fits perfectly into this scheme, as it was devised in early January, just in time for a short run of WIP performances.

Bad Science follows three politicians who pose as scientists to fabricate a fictional psychiatric condition, in order to deceive the British public. Through frenzied movement, audience interaction, and dark satire, the piece challenges us to question how and why politicians can manipulate the idea of science to influence society for their gain.

It was unfortunate to learn that cast member Eleanor Haigh was unable to perform due to injury, especially considering her standout work in last summer’s marvelous revival of Calima Lunt Gomez’s The Rug of Identity. However, James Skull stepped in as understudy, seamlessly joining the cast with barely any signs of disruption. This was an impressive challenge to overcome, and Skull, and the cast and crew deserve commendation—without prior knowledge, the change in cast might have gone unnoticed thanks to Skull’s confidence in the role.

However, Haigh’s contributions as movement/choreography director were still greatly felt – one of the strongest parts of the show was Haigh’s choreography. The cast performed a number of campy synchronized dances accompanied by electronic music, indubitably portraying their villainy as evil politicians. They moved hilariously in sync, making it difficult to look away.

Sara Abanur delivers a strong performance as the boss character, providing an amusing contrast to Emily Bold’s sweeter portrayal of A. Her physicality was firm and her comedic timing was sharp– a clear leader of the group.

Emily Bold, lead artist and whose mind the show originated from, was hilarious—her facial expressions were delightfully melodramatic and silly. It was impressive how distinct each performer made their character, despite being referred to simply as A, B, C, or remaining essentially nameless throughout the performance.

Creative captioning, designed by Emily Bold and PJ Cunningham (creative producer), was a central element of the performance—not only providing captioning for those hard of hearing but also incorporating bright graphics and emojis to get across the humour within the powerful electronic music, sound effects and the cast’s line delivery. Bold and Cunningham’s imaginative use of captions highlighted the depth that can be achieved within captioning, ensuring that those hard of hearing were fully included without missing any tonal nuances that standard captioning may have overlooked.

Other creatives include Julia Rogers (co-writet and dramaturg) and Jess Edwards (lighting designer and show operator).

All in all, though succinct, Bad Science is an exciting piece with the potential to thrive at the likes of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. With further development, this work-in-progress performance could become a major hit, especially given its strong promise in experimenting with innovative creative captioning. Bad Science holds immense potential.