In the summer of 2004, a German hip hop show came from nowhere to scoop most of the press awards on the Edinburgh Fringe. Yet, as Rumble returns for an eight-week tour of the UK, it proves, once again, that a festival hit isn't necessarily forever.
Renegade Theatre's b-boying, breakboxing, body popping reinvention of Romeo and Juliet could not be more cheerily entertaining - but it doesn't measure up to the awed superlatives which greeted this show 18 months ago.
The opening half hour promises so much. Revved up video clips and witty, digital graffiti set the scene for a Verona of high rise estates and turf warfare, in which the Montagues and Capulets are rival break dance crews. As the nine dancers compete in a dazzle of aerodynamic headspins and razor sharp robotics, they seem the perfect modern equivalent of Shakespeare's young blades. Cackling, preening, strutting, and flirting, you almost re-envision their baggy jeans and trainers as doublet and hose.
Director Markus Michalowski and choreographer Lorca Renoux also make the smart decision to move a few steps outside of the hip hop box. Their score goes beyond rap to a supple, often atmospheric jazz fusion, which in turn frees the dancers to embrace a wider more expressive vocabulary.
Juliet, who is performed by contemporary dancer Ulrike Reinbott, declares her dawning love through a fluidly yearning solo, and when she's finally dancing alone with Romeo, Sefa Erdik, their duet becomes a tenderly reciprocal trade of dance styles, her quasi classical steps for his rocking b-boy spins.
It's when the action starts to turn dark, however, that Rumble starts to lose its poise - and when you can't help but make comparisons with its hip hop predecessor, Rennie Harries' Rome and Jewels.
Set against the rage and destruction that howled through Harries' vision, Rumble looks like bantam weight tragedy, like kids playing at love and death. The show actually seems embarrassed by this stuff. One minute the Montis and Caps are joshing around, then in a flash of knives, Mercutio and Tybalt are dead on the ground, and Romeo and Juliet are attempting a double suicide.
There's no tension, no conflict, and as the giggling kids in the audience on Thursday night made clear, no passion. It comes as a tangible relief when Rumble gives up any pretence of doing Shakespeare and closes with a riotous reprise of the dancers' finest moves.
· Ends tonight (Box office: 08703 800 400), then UK tour continues at Wyvern Theatre, Swindon, on February 7.
