As our post-valentines day treat we went to see Talia Theatre's production of The Life of Moliere at the Octagon on Wednesday night.

We were really not sure what to expect - for starters it was being shown in the little Bill Naughton Theatre which was, erm, cosy and shoe-box shaped and for seconds the set involved a rather cheap looking trolley with bits hanging off it. <br/><br/> What we got surpassed even the trolley - the thing was staged using the methodology of Biomechanics, a physical theatre technique developed by Russian theatre guru Vsevold Meyerhold which is supposed to imbibe the movements of the players with meaning. In this case it just looked silly. Bend and stretch and shuffle and bang and shout too much. The physical antics detracted from the storytelling of what could have been an interesting and dark topic of censorship through the ages. The script with it's cheap cracks about turds, clearly just to get a quick laugh, didn't help the situation. <br/><br/> While this kind of stuff would be all very well done properly I can't see Talia's current incarnation of Biomechanics becoming much of a family favourite.