Botticelli in the Fire review – ‘a queered and camp history’

Botticelli in the Fire review

Botticelli in the Fire review. ★★★★☆ by Ifan Llewelyn

Just when you think you’ve seen all that London theatre has to offer, in rolls Botticelli’s Venus in a rhinestoned nude catsuit on a gigantic seashell surrounded by neon backing dancers vogueing to Britney Spears’ “Work B**ch”. To say Blanche McIntyre’s staging of Botticelli in the Fire is an assault on the senses is an understatement. Throwing everything from pyrotechnics to raining corpses at Jordan Tannahill’s re-imagining of Sandro Botticelli and the creation of his masterpiece ‘The Birth of Venus’, this is one evening of theatre that you won’t forget.

Set in a dystopic Florence where the iPhone has landed before a functioning sewer system, we meet a young and virile Botticelli at the height of his career. He has the ear of ruler Lorenzo de’ Medici and a fat new commission to paint a portrait of his wife. But as we were cautioned by Botticelli himself in the play’s opening, this is to be the story of his downfall. With civil unrest brewing among the proletariat and a plague ravaging the streets, his days at the top of the heap are numbered. The unrest gives rise to puritanical preacher Savonarola and his teachings against sin, impropriety and, most notably, sodomy. The clouds are looming above Botticelli, Michelangelo and apprentice Leonardo de Vinci who have been overt with their queerness, and Sandro’s affair with Medici’s wife isn’t helping the situation. 

As Botticelli in a pair of black spray-on skinny jeans, Dickie Beau embodies the flamboyant exuberance of this piece. He has all the subtlety of a tap-dancing elephant, but the performance feels right at home in this performance. His self-serving demeanour is a little hard to warm to which proves to be a bit of a problem in the scenes intended to pull on the heartstrings. The pieces brightest performance comes with Sirine Saba’s short but delicious turn as Venus. She really does Tannahill’s meditations on beauty justice as the Venus who’s grown weary of being immortalised as young and beautiful, lusting for snaggletoothed men who can recognise a car from the sound of its exhaust pipe.

After Botticelli meets his foretold tragic end, you can’t help but leave the theatre thinking “Those poor fucking stagehands.” Every scene is bedazzled, sequined and feathered with light shows, choral singing, fires and costumes. Some are truly impressive, like a mimed squash game perfectly choreographed to match the sound of a ricocheting rubber ball, others get lost in the unrelenting madness. This production captures the marrying of high art and popular culture in spectacular fashion. Though occasionally treading a little too literally, there’s so much to enjoy in this phantasmagorical queered origin story. 

 Botticelli in the Fire at the Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage NW3 3EU is running until 23rd November.

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