Bangers – Arcola Theatre
“A lyrical love letter to UK garage,” Bangers is a mixed bag mix tape of bright futures and crushed dreams. Under the neon glow of Laura Howard’s chilled/chilly lighting design, the Arcola Theatre is transformed into a concert venue.
DJ Tanya-Loretta Dee cues up tracks under an industrial scaffold as audiences file into the space, meander across the stage’s set of club speakers, and make their way to their assigned seats. There’s a strange uneasiness to the arrangement of the space which places a playing stage not above its audience but in the arena pit of the small Hackney theatre. Very much a North London storytelling theatre, and despite its ushering staff’s best efforts the atmosphere cultivated in the room is not that of bouncer patrolled nightclub where the music is booming and th...