“Unicorn Party is a very contemporary response to the crazy times we live in,” Nick Field tells me when discussing his one-man show.
Unexpected, exciting and at times gloriously bonkers, Unicorn Party is a funny, inventive performance that draws on a number of different styles, from repurposed power ballads and live art, to explore some pressing questions.
The show ran at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it got 4 star reviews and proved a massive hit with audiences too. And now it’s coming to Oxford’s Burton Taylor Theatre on Wednesday.
“It’s a lot of fun. It’s fantastic how audiences have joined me on this unexpected journey, and how great the responses have been,” Nick says.
But what gave him the idea? “As fascism becomes an increasingly predominant factor in world politics, I noticed that unicorns also seem to be everywhere in some form or other.
“I’d see them all over the place,” he laughs, “not physically obviously, but as an image, or a marketing strategy or a symbol.
“So the show took that as its starting point; what these two rising, and seemingly polar-opposite phenomenons, tell us about each other, and the zeitgeist.
“After I began exploring this strange phenomenon, it turned out, quite a lot. Unicorns have been a product of imagination and culture since civilisation began, and were reinvented by new empires and cultures.
“For me as a theatre-maker, they offer an amazing opportunity to explore how ideologies spread, and how our imaginations are capitalised.
“It also about how purity is often used as a central principle of fascism, and how that has unwittingly shaped our lives, because they have been associated with purity across history. “
This is a big complex subject, so Unicorn Party mashes together pop culture, takes us on a dexterous, stand-up-esque trip through the contemporary rise of unicorns in our culture, and reimagines the recent history of Britain as a Unicorn totalitarian state.
There’s also tongue-in-cheek rituals, a unicorn seance, and I have created my own (surprisingly risqué) unicorn product, which I demonstrate to hilarious effect.
“I’m really looking forward to bringing it to Oxford,” Nick concludes.
None the wiser? Me neither. But I can’t wait to see it.
Unicorn Party is on Wed Sept 11 at the BT Studio
01865 305305 or oxfordplayhouse.com
