Guru Dudu’s Silent Disco Walking Tours
Guru Dudu Productions at Brighton Fringe
Guru Dudu returns to the Fringe with his shivering sexy flannel purple hot pants, his cheeky but fierce boyish looks and his dapper and daft patter as he takes us, a huge crowd of excited to be there festival folks on a dancing-walking tour. He’s updated the technology but kept the magic of the pied piper, and we – gripped by the immersive headphone music leap – are enchanted.
We start in New Road with some safety instructions and a bonding experiences, we don our lightweight comfy but excellent headphones and are immersed in disco, disco, disc with Guru Dudu melodious and infections voice the only other noise, it’s strange, immersive but also compulsive, we are immediately joined into One.
He then takes us, as Abbas Voulez-vous (ah-ha) kicks off and we transform into a spontaneous flash mob (ah-ha) dancing through the streets, (ah-ha) whisking up to the Komedia (ah-ha) for some interpretative dancing to Bohemian Rhapsody then plunging back through the hectic heart of the festival weekend for lots of crazy interaction with onlookers and Wuthering Heights in the Pavilion Gardens.
Onlookers are bemused and sucked into our surreal world as we surround them for a moment of loud out of tune singing, improvised mayhem and dance, although we all think we sound wondrously in tune with clever harmonies. Gentle instructions and easy dance moves are mixed in with funny commentary from Guru Dudu.
The dance mix of uplifting favourites from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s keeps us happy and arm waving as we head down into the city centre, doing a traffic stopping Stevie Wonder dance in Old Steine then whipping up through the South Lanes before plunging down the twisting alleys of the lanes to Rock Your Body from the Back Street Boys, Guru Dudu keeps up the energy and funny commentary all the way.
Silent disco tour is just that, silent and a disco, and a decent enough tour around central Brighton but it’s also a team building experience of excellence, a travelling mini festival, a flashmob a stunning example of both game theory and bystander theory in action, a seriously fun piece of immersive theatre using the city and inhabitants as its backdrop, a life affirming experience and great fun.
GuruDudu works his cute tush off making sure we are drilled and rehearsed, his military grade tech never lets the show down, and his can-do, utterly engaging attitude makes sure each and every person, no matter how shy or uncomfortable is soon blended into the smooth whole of his dream, his vision, to turn the streets of the city he is in into a living, breathing musical.
You become the most fun act in town, passers-by love you, traffic stops, but on we danced, part of a huge happy mob and every time I wander down Nile Street again I’ll be lifting them hands and rocking that body!
A liberating, superb experience and certainly a must do for anyone who’s not yet been on this trek into the camp heart of Brighton and surely the coolest way to see the city centre. I wanna do it in heels, for pride, you hear us Guru!
Until June 3
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