5 stars
Tomás Ford reveals more of himself in an hour with Tomás Ford in Kuala Lumpur than his audiences have seen over his whole career.
Image courtesy of Tomás Ford
There’s a lot of consistency with Ford’s portfolio to date, his party animal persona from Crap Music Rave Party and elements of the familiar performance style fringe aficionados will know from his previous cabaret works being clearly visible, but this show is also a considerable change of direction for the fringe festival stalwart.
The stage, ramshackle and messy, is set with typical Ford panache. There’s a vast amount of gaffer tape, milk crates and school furniture holding his tech, and fabric stretched over frames to form a surface upon which to project the visual art accompanying his music.
That music—other than a menacingly hilarious dad rap—takes the form of electronic backing to the new weapon in his performance arsenal: an amplified and distorted ukulele. With this in hand, Ford rampages through genres. There’s a downright tear-jerker, an uplifting turning point, and a punchy little pop jam.
It’s the ultimate late night cabaret with Ford’s power-croon vocals expressing the emotional journey that took place around his grant-funded jaunt to Kuala Lumpur. Between songs his jittery patter with the audience continues the theme.
He admits early on that there’s none of the hyper-aggression and nigh-combative shtick for which he is, outside of Crap Music Rave Party, known best. This is a very different kind of show. A show with feelings.
Ford exposes the anxious, hyperactive heart that drives not only his performance style, but also his personal life. It’s an occasionally sobering peek into his family life, and the strength he draws from his familial relationships.
For such an emotionally raw performance, Ford’s delivery is fantastically polished. The home-brew nature of his sonic and visual style belies an impressive professionalism that speaks to his years of performance experience.
This is perhaps Ford’s strongest show in a narrative sense, topping even Chase! in terms of cohesive storytelling. It’s anecdotal in nature, as it says on the box Tomas Ford in Kuala Lumpur is quite simply a travelogue of sorts. His open dialogue with the audience comes across more as a therapy session—or at the least a deep and meaningful conversation—than an explicitly storytelling venture, and is all more effective because of it.
Heralding the dawn of a new era for Ford’s work, this is a show that entrances as much as it enlightens. Tomás Ford in Kuala Lumpur is a beautiful ode to performance and the life of the performer himself.
Tickets available from the FRINGE WORLD website.
GLEN SEABROOK-BENSON