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Two men sit at a bare table. “It’s wonderful here tonight”; “You look very nice tonight…yes, very nice”. They address the audience, repeating banal phrases, each referencing the show’s title. Talking over each other, two quickfire monologues, and yet saying very little. If it’s scripted, it’s very well rehearsed; either way it’s either mildly amusing, or rather irritating.
Bert and Nasi, part of the Caravan Assembly’s presentation of international performances at Brighton Festival 2026, describe themselves as a contemporary performance duo, somewhere between theatre, dance and, well, ‘performance’. Their work, they say, is stripped back and minimalist; and the bare set, with lit up curtain and moveable table, leaving the audience little to go on in terms of context, imagery or narrative. A sold-out crowd appeared to enjoy the vague humour and rambling absurdist conjecture about what might happen ‘tonight’; but there was a feeling that, since it was neither laugh-out-loud funny, nor emotionally engaging, we didn’t quite get it. It felt vaguely political but without a clear agenda and although the pair had a jovial likeability, I didn’t get a sense of their relationship or distinct characters. Perhaps that was the point – theatre stripped back to something without story, character, fourth wall, or anything resembling pretence. They describe the show as aiming to ‘make us laugh at…our enduring need to believe’. But, given that this was not stand-up, clowning nor dance, the expected theatre and its capacity to allow us to suspend disbelief and engage with the fantasy should be central to our enjoyment of it. Otherwise, what is there?
