Purple Rainbow is a musical without the live singing; a tale of the search for love amidst somewhat threatening and disruptive societal conditions. It is conveyed through full-out aerobically intense, rhythmically bound, disco-linedance-jazzercise type dancing from the Dynomotion dancers, set to a soundtrack of danceable pop music ranging from Chess and the Village People to Gnarles Barkley and Cher’s latest anthem. The lyrics are the thing, always carefully chosen to amplify the plot.  

The pace is intense, the mood effervescent, and often tongue-in-cheek, and while the dancing itself is fairly meaningless, the gestural content is emphasised and the cast of nine singularly coloured individuals make wonderful use of their faces in comic-book style.  

The dancing is so slick and coordinated, and their individual contributions so wonderfully styled, that you have to just sit back and admire them – and accept whatever mayhem follows. Fortunately, there’s a pre-recorded voiceover that confirms the narrative thread. 

In the foreground are a disparate trio around whom the plot rotates. Our hero (antihero?) is a somewhat paranoid self-defined macho straight guy, Purple (Roberto Nascimento), who discovers he has the hots for the disconcertingly liberal yet sizzlingly attractive Ms Red (Kate Simmonds).

He also has a bunch of workmates including Brown (Thomas Sainsbury) and Pink (Kermath Davies) who he finds particularly disturbingly not macho enough, and they belittle his self-absorbed commitment to the task at hand, and his tendency to eat lunch alone (protein shakes) and exercise at every moment. His closest acquaintance is the genial Green (Ash Jones), a workmate who also goes to the gym and the pub, and who Purple enlists to help find a safe haven later in the story. 

Their social activities peak at the pub with a night of wild dancing, drinking and puking…. A little later, Purple, Green and Red hit the road in a wild chase from the city to the outer burbs, pursued by a roaming mob of apparently apocalyptic gay zombies. The ending… well that particular series of scenes is really not to be spoilt.

The packed-to-the-rafters audience was delighted with every last moment on opening night, and the encores are especially delightful. 

This is the third such production from the Dynomotion team, devised, choreographed and directed by Lara Fischel-Chisholm and Thomas Sainsbury. Like the earlier, hugely successful Terror Island and Terror Planet, Purple Rainbow is somewhat formulaic in its construction and dramaturgy, but the formula as such seems sound enough to allow for innovation, and there’s no doubting that the cast relish their engagement more and more with each show. 

All credit to the supremely fit cast: Kate Simmonds, Ash Jones, Roberto Nascimento, Thomas Sainsbury, Perlina Lau, Marion Shortt, Karamia Muller, Kermath Davies and Elizabeth McMenamin.

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