Elixir Revived
What happens when you leave boys alone with scientific toys? You get chaos, excitement and most of all, you get fun!
The boys from Head First Acrobats are back with their latest show, Elixir Revived. This is a revamped version of their original, but with ramped up comedy and entertainment.
After flashing red lights and alert signals, the show starts with a zombie breakout, setting the stage for four eccentric scientists working for an unknown pharmaceutical company. They're testing the Elixir of Life on themselves and each experiment gives them amazing new powers including, trapeze, ladder work (including a headstand on the ladder), knife throwing, aerial straps, breakdance (with more than a reference to Raygun), springboard and more!
While the production is similar to the original, the acts have been super charged for even more thrills. Each performer takes a special potion or elixir before each act giving them superhuman powers and pushing their physicality to the limits.
What makes the show special is the boy’s ability to ‘work’ the audience. The performance I attended was packed with an audience who were eating out of the boy’s hands (or bodies). These boys have a real warmth that is contagious and are not afraid to laugh at themselves or the comic situations they place themselves in. There were phones ‘snapping the action’ throughout the production.
They are very equally comfortable working the audience and each other. The level of trust is amazing as one performer stands in front of a wooden wall while having knives thrown at him.
I particularly enjoyed; the ‘Thriller’ section with some of the original choreography, the level of strength required for some of the balancing acts, and the aerial work culminating in Liam Drummer spinning at the rate of knots suspended by a mouthpiece.
While all the boys are equally multi-talented, Cal Harris the compere and CEO of Head First Acrobats deserves a special mention. He has an infectious cheekiness and holds the show together. His faux ‘urination’ scene was hysterical with the first row of the audience caught in the stray shower.
The Head First Acrobats keep coming up with new concepts. This reviewer has seen most of them and while some of the acts are similar, it is the interaction between the lads and with the audience that makes the production work. They are talented acrobats, comedians and certainly deliver in the ab department.
Elixir Revived is slick, campy, clever and more fun than a barrel of monkeys! Just watch out for the zombies and stray liquids coming your way if you are in the front rows, but then, who doesn’t like a good zombie or a refreshing spritz!
Barry Hill OAM
Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.