Ctrl.Alt.Shift @ Riz MC MICroscope Event

The rain was pouring down with no concern to the Saturday night London revellers, as I made my way through umbrellas, high-heels and threatening puddles to the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler’s Wells Theatre - where Riz Ahmed [1]was performing at his last MICroscope event [2].

As soon as I walked into the venue, the lights switched off and men in white suits stood on two of the four stages positioned around the room, shouting things at one another and us - for a second I thought I had walked into a mad house. When I’d finally made sense of things and realised this was no where near your usual sit-down theatre experience (we were literally standing in the middle of all four stages), Riz MC (Riz Ahmed) appeared on the third stage and welcomed us to his ‘Lab’, introducing us to his fellow “gangsta scientists”, Maxwell Golden [3] and Tom Calvert.

He then got started on explaining his first ‘experiment’, literally dividing us into the ‘cool’ and the ‘friendly’ groups, sharing the Lab’s “findings on their testing of the human species” which took the form of beats and rhymes. With every new 'experiment ' all your senses where engaged, following three MCs bouncing from stage to stage, dancers moving between us, above us and around us, and live video projections with a good mix of multi-media art. Basically, not a second was spared for you to get lethargic. The show was tight in every sense of the word, with a live band being rolled out into the crowd for an acoustic rendition of Riz's ‘Sour Times’; the vocalist waltzing between us with her flashing light dress - and I’m not trying to be figurative, the costumes were out there!

 What was the point of this “conceptual” display that included a mad mixture of music, theatre and “a whole lot of hype” (as Riz finely put it)?

Each of Riz Mc’s ‘experiments’ commented on the social scene of London, whether it’s snorting lines of white powder, the coldness and “wack fakeness” we project, the new trend of living in the ‘ghetto’, to the absurdity of social networks like Facebook and twitter; as the host said, “If you’re not on Facebook when you die we won’t be able to send cyber grievances!” And a personal highlight, I thought, was when Riz MC looked out at the audience and said, “You guys all look so much better on your profile pics.”

I’d definitely recommend being part of the 'upgrade testing to an audience'. If you ever thought a hybrid of a gig and a theatre performance couldn’t happen, check out the Riz MC MICroscope Event, which will be touring in 2010… Watch this space. Experiment complete.

For more info on Riz MC, and his future projects, click here [4]. 

Image: Flickr user Pavlunka [5]