And The Birds Fell From The Sky by Il Pixel Rosso is a...uh. Hmm. Well, uh- hmm. What is it, actually? Well, it’s a thing. And The Birds Fell From The Sky (ATBFFTS) by Il Pixel Rosso is definitely a thing.
Describing or defining ATBFFTS is, if you haven’t gathered, a futile and impossible task, and one akin to tiptoeing through minefield of unexploded spoilers – so, we won’t – but what we can tell you is this: it starts with a room, all post-apocalyptically soundtracked and helpers in waistcoats, and then BAM! Your senses are hijacked. BAM! BAM BAM BAM!
It’s in this hijacked state – your eyes are now two tiny, goggle-mounted LCD screens, by the way, while your ears are wired into a pair of noise-cancelling headphones – that you are guided, by mysterious and presumably be-waistcoated hands and a whispering voice in your ear, through a half-hour story about clowns, and birds, and them falling from the sky. It’s like a really bewildering museum tour, only with clowns.
Initially, having a pair of new eyes and fresh ears is wildly disorientating (which is, probably, the point), but it’s surprising how quickly you and your existing organs adjust. The whole thing would be a kind of schlocky and stunty endeavour, of course, if the story being told wasn’t an interesting one, and it is – urgent and perplexing, and sometimes terrifying, and with clowns – although not one that we can do any justice to by describing here. Just: this thing, it is a good thing. Go and do this thing.
And The Birds Fell From The Sky, £5, 6pm – 10pm daily until Sunday 31 July at the Drayton Arms, SW5. Part of Kensington and Chelsea's inTRANSIT festival.
