It’s hard to imagine anyone being charmed by Panic, a ludicrously self‑indulgent devised piece from the usually reliably idiosyncratic Improbable. At the end of an interminable 100 minutes, we’ve learnt a lot about performer Phelim McDermott’s manhood and where he chooses to put it, and next to nothing about the ostensible subject, the great god Pan.
This goaty Greek immortal, associated with nature, sexual urges and, if we’re to believe this show, endless knob gags, flickers vaguely on the edge of the action, while McDermott and his three "nymphs" regale us with looping confessions of a loosely adult nature.
There’s something to admire in the quirky hand-knitted feel of Julian Crouch and Phil Eddolls’s design, and cheap laughs to be had when McDermott takes us through the titles of his extensive collection of self-help books. Yet the lurching logic of this production from Crouch and Lee Simpson fails to elucidate quite what this section might have to do with anything else. The most desperate bit of inconsequential whimsy I’ve suffered in a long while.
Panic, until 16 May (020 7638 8891, www.barbican.org.uk).
Panic
Barbican: The Pit
Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
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