Babakas Our Fathers

Three Weeks / Gavin Leech


This totally charming experimental piece uses film, dance and comedy to have a good hard look at childhood and parenthood. The characters are the cast fictionalised, and the three – lively, crazed singleton ‘Sofia’ (Sofia Paschou), pouty Situationist dancer ‘Bert’ (Bert Roman) and contemplative actor ‘Mike’ (Mike Tweddle) – more than fill the stage trying to understand their fathers. There’s no fourth wall: ‘Sofia’ dates the entire audience, snuggling up to us one by one, eventually having our child. Babakas’ many innovations – the home-video footage, multilingual jokes, a dramatised Skype call and life told through diaries – are fun as well as intelligent, emotive as well as outré. By the end some understanding dawns, experiences in common being about enough. Wonderful.