Glastonbury Festival

The Cholmondelyes and the Featherstonehaughs - Review

Dressed in pin-stripe suits and Trilby hats, six women take to the stage in the Theatre tent, and open their act with a rendition of Stranger in the Night, each of the performers taking the microphone in turn while slowly dancing Fifties style. They are the acclaimed Cholmondeleys, a troupe who have been performing for twenty years, and who set the tent alight on Friday night.

In one piece, three dancers take their seats on barstools on the stage. “This piece could be about the craggy rock face,” one woman tells the Glastonbury audience who are half expecting a hazy yogic-esque experience. “The rock face with bubbles and biscuits and rabbits about to fall into the orange tidal waves and the pebbles clacking because they new… but it’s not – this is called barstools.” At which point the trio trip into a muzakky jazz piece where they imitate men waiting at a bar trying to pull a girl - twisting and turning to catch people’s eyes, looking bored at the absence of date, preening and posing on their stools – and create a brilliant comedy.

Another piece, Elvis Legs, is based on them studying hours of footage of Elvis Presley and combining all his moves to create a beautiful toe-tapping number that emerges as a rock’n’roll ballet.

The Cholmondeleys’ male counterparts are the Featherstonehaughs who opened the show in more sinister fashion. In rubber Martha Stewart style dresses, they crawled and wriggled like insects on the floor and performed a haunting dance of supplication. But it was the more established sister group that stole the show. While easy on the eye, their scenes had witty kick to them that brought the audience to their feet to dance at the end of the show. Now there’s not much modern dance that provokes that reaction.

The group is performing again on Saturday and Sunday night, again at the Theatre tent.

Joy Lo Dico

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