Dimanche is French for Sunday, and according to the Bible it’s the seventh day that God ended His work which He had done and rested.

Brought to us by Belgian creatives Focus & Chaliwaté’s, there is minimal (and no English) dialogue. Using puppetry, props, physicality and Paul Simon songs, they have created a thoughtful piece on the state of the world and how we are responding to it. 

With climate change creating new normals, intrepid reporters arm themselves with cameras to document and highlight the dangers of what is happening.  All while a family goes about their everyday routine with cooling fans blasting and tables melting. Apparently wilful ignorance is bliss and they must get pretty creative to not acknowledge the truth.  It’s these vignettes that combine to show the power of nature and denial. [More]

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This exquisitely crafted yet sobering work of exhilarating creativity is a co-production of the Focus and Chaliwaté Companies from Belgium, where the three official languages spoken are Dutch, French and German.

Dimanche (from the Old English Sunnandæg: the day of the sun) is the French word for Sunday (Zondag in Dutch; Sonntag in German) – so named because pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples set it aside to worship the sun. Then it became the Lord’s Day; the day of rest.

Nowadays, as the still-worshipped sun plays havoc with our desecrated planet Earth, we still seek leisure and relaxation, often together as a family, on Sundays – hence the title: Dimanche.

In the vast darkness of the TSB Arena, tiny lights glow on stage, as if observed from outer space. Someone is sitting at a flat plane on which tiny pine trees grow. There’s a tiny house on a hill and pin-prick lights denote a vehicle travelling to it. Then the trees are cleared, the mini vehicle trundles through the wilderness – and suddenly three full-sized people are bouncing behind a windscreen, dextrously operating windscreen-wipers, a rear-vision mirror and the steering wheel as ’50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’ plays on the stereo: a wonderfully dramatic transition.

Written and directed by Julie Tenret, Sicaire Durieux and Sandrine Heyra, the meticulously conceived, designed and delivered scenarios that follow are theatrically astonishing, not least because they are performed by just three exponents of physical theatre and puppetry – Sicaire Durieux, Sandrine Heyraud and Christine Heyraud – with stage management support from Leonard Clarys and Isabelle Derr, and the technical operators of Guillaume Toussaint Fromentin’s lighting and Brice Cannavo’s sound designs, within Zoé Tenret’s scenography.

To summarise what happens will not be a spoiler because the magic is in the way the illusions of reality are manifested. Not that the medium is the message; the meticulous production design, performances, puppetry, AV projection, lighting and sound effects are compellingly combined and confidently paced to depict what the forces of nature are up to as people go about their normal lives – or try to.

The trio in the van turn out to be a documentary television crew – cameraman, sound operator, presenter – somewhere in the Arctic, trying to record a piece to camera amid ominous groaning and cracking … Initially comical, their ultimate fate is simultaneously shocking and lyrical.

The Polar Bear that rests on an ice shelf is gorgeous and her tiny, inquisitive and warmly nurtured cub sends a ripple of joy through the auditorium (puppets created by Waw! Studios / Joachim Jannin). But their world is still cracking up, with a heart-rending consequence.

The fluid transition to the living area of a home is an object lesson to all productions that subject their audiences to tedious scene changes. We’re in a hot climate now as a small TV set broadcasts a news item that relates to the Artic story and is clearly tragic – but the man who is vacuuming, surrounded by whirring fans, ignores it. Grandma (a life-sized puppet) is having trouble with her Stairlift chair but manages to get downstairs for an icy footbath and breakfast lovingly brought by her daughter (or daughter-in-law). But more than our hearts start melting … Another superbly-crafted effect.

Also from equatorial climes, a Flamingo tends to her chick – and a helicopter flies above it. It drips a rope ladder to someone needing rescue as a storm brews … The tragi-comic outcome of the Flamingo’s fate is that cyclone delivers the family a fowl for their Sunday roast. But the extreme weather plays havoc with the couple’s attempts to enjoy it with a glass of wine …

Is that the supine side of a naked body now picked out in a shaft light? A dune-buggy putters over it – and again the miniature becomes life-sized as a woman unpacks her aqualung gear and mounts a camera on a tripod. There is no warning of the tsunami (indeed the water in the cove is not sucked out before the massive wave rolls in) but the devastation it brings is dire.

The underwater sequences that follow are astoundingly credible, as if we are watching a wildlife documentary. The behaviour-patterns of sea creatures have obviously been studied and are lovingly recreated as household objects and a human body drift in the deep and slowly sink …

We could swear the kayak a woman is paddling is on a real expanse of water … and the final image says it all.

Because the TSB Arena is a large auditorium there were plenty more seats available on opening night. I urge you to book if you haven’t already. Dimanche is festival fare extraordinaire, unlikely to be seen here in any other context. 

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