n 1997, Gregg Whelan and Gary Winters, better known as Lone Twin, set off on an epic journey on folding bicycles. Since then, they have been halfway round the world. Nine Years is the fragmented story of that journey, a latter day quest in which these two quirky modern Odysseuses travel the world joining up the map and making interactions and connections.
They stand for 12 hours on a bridge in Denmark and wait for somebody to hold their hand; they line-dance blindfolded for 12 hours in Montreal and see, or rather don't see, who joins them; they cycle endlessly around the Brussels ring-road in the very heart of Europe; they carry a telegraph pole on a direct line through the centre of Colchester and carve into the wood the names of those who help them.
Sometimes in this crazy, little-big, ugly-beautiful show, there's a touch of Dorothy trying to get home, while the telegraph-pole story makes you think of Jesus and the crucifixion.
The mixture of the heroic and stupid is enormously appealing. Nine Years is like being made to look at two strangers' holiday snaps. Initially, you don't give a fig, but after a while you are irresistibly drawn in as four continents and millions of unknown lives flash by. This isn't so much about place as about displacement. The trick is in the deadpan telling of these inconsequential traveller's tales, and the way that everywhere they go, these lone travellers forge a community.
They offer a bewildered wave at the world, and the world unexpectedly waves back. Cut off from their own lives, missing birthdays, celebrations and important events, they act like a magnet to the lonely, the disconnected, those who wish they could leave and go somewhere else too.
Nine years is captured in less than 90 minutes in this odd and oddly moving and optimistic show.
· At Colchester Arts Centre tonight (01206 500900), then touring.
