Tomás Ford Stop Killing People

We’re assured by Aussie Tomás Ford, as he walks into a room which quivers from the bass notes of an electro-dub beat, that audience interaction is nothing to fear. A microphone headset hooked to his ear, he paces up through the centre aisle, turning to face us in front of a screen that shows us a victim tied up in an undisclosed place. Who is this prisoner? Has Ford already killed him? As our host wipes blood from his face, the questions really start to flood our minds.

Quickly revealed is the noir spy thriller Ford is reliving, as he chases the love of his life across the world while in parallel pursuit of a drug cartel. His multimedia show is practically sung-through, as Ford uses thumping cabaret melodies and lyrics that describe his journey in detail. All written by Ford, this storytelling can be thoughtful, terrifying and delirious all at once: a feat which is constantly impressive but produces severely mixed outcomes.

After a while, Ford’s ceaseless singing becomes hard to stomach. It’s all too hallucinogenic, too intoxicating to be enjoyable. His music creates quite an immersive experience in which we are thrown into his dangerous mission (he even plays some of it out from within the audience). It has plenty of potential to get us on board. Sadly, there aren’t enough breaks in the music to focus on the narrative, so Ford loses us along the way. By the time we’re picked back up, the story has moved along too far for us to engage with it on the kind of emotional levels Ford asks us to.