Review: Wendy Houstoun’s Watch It!- Soho Theatre, London

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The one-woman show strap-line says it: It is not easy if even possible to qualify the nature of Wendy Houstoun’s new solo, Watch It! The performance artist, dancer and dare I say hybrid comedian takes an entire auditorium worth of audience members through a chronological and physical deambulation that Soho Theatre’s webpage hypothesizes as “quite possibly her last show ever”.

Never having encountered the work of Wendy Houstoun before, nor that of DV8, the dance and theatre company she was long associated with from 1980 to its end in 2022, I was not entirely sure what to expect. The stage is bare save a 3×3 meter square delineated by white tape, a mic-stand in its centre and a large piece of red fabric thrown about a wooden chair.

As the show starts, Houstoun commences a rhythmic march to the sound of bassy EDM. She starts speaking and her body, her presence, and her words are nothing short of hypnotic, I believe the scribble that I am now trying to decipher on my notepad reads “fascinating”. As she marches on, her words set the scene in the 1980s, swiftly taking us through the 90s, the early 2000s, and into the present day.

References mix and match, clever jokes coupled with reminiscences of war, protests, and suddenly the sobering ghost of the AIDS crisis appears before us as Houstoun sadly repeats the mantra “DO NOT TOUCH”. From its inception we are with her, flowing through the years, laughter knocked out of us and bubbling up again.

The performance, almost a show within a show, turns into a game show for one where Houstoun acts both as herself, the only contestant who after a 40-year-long career made it to the game’s final, and also impersonates the implacable presenter. The ironic idea of the show is to manage to present an hour’s worth of performance that would entertain and make the audience laugh without upsetting anyone.

Although little entertains me more than seeing a truly skilled comedic performer use the basic tool of impersonating two people speaking to one another, the power of the show lies in the images Houston conjures. Although some vocal elements are lost under loud sound effects that, coupled with a bright screen behind Houston sometimes steal focus, the basic set is beautifully utilised. The piece of red fabric becomes in turn a blanket, a sari, a folk dancing skirt or an undefined cape evoking a burka. Her performance, as she uses her own heritage and identity to pose questions of legitimacy, remains rooted in an entrancing and fun physical mastery.

Using dark examples of social media existence or currency as a performer, Houstoun poses questions and glances with both concern and irony at the way in which we freeze or attack under the weight of the ideological packages one often finds themselves being asked to abide to in order to exist.

The reason I believe this show is important, powerful, and beautiful is because I was slightly upset at several times during it, or rather irritated. I felt the questions posed and the fun poked were at my very Gen-Z, privileged leftie expenses sometimes, as Houstoun remarks “…how annoying is it when people laugh at things you don’t find funny? “ I was caught in the traps of wondering where Houstoun’s legitimacy came from, whether she was allowed to raise questions, to suggest stillness at the same time as chaos and laughter in the face of a crumbling world.

I agreed, disagreed, wasn’t sure or didn’t quite know what to think but I laughed and thought, exchanged, and existed through an hour that passed extremely quickly. Watch It! represents the essence of what performance art can be, and it is a privilege to take the opportunity offered to lightly and critically look at ourselves and each other without the weight of moral prevalence. The show does not pretend to respond but opens questions that we all need to ask ourselves as individuals subjected to the relentless job of online existence.

Featured Image: Hugo Glendinning

Wendy Houstoun: WATCH IT! is presented by Wendy Houston.