Review: Wendy Houstoun / WATCH IT!

Wendy Houstoun’s WATCH IT! reminds you of where you were and who you were in recent decades, before leading you into the woolly, wokey, contradictory maze of today. 

The simple staging and structure: a black box, a mic, a chair draped in red fabric and Houstoun recalling events through headline-like snippets, is just the top layer. You can stay on the surface: enjoy the absurdity of the 2024 game show in which Houstoun is the host and the sole self-censoring contestant expected to hold opinions but express them without upsetting anyone. You could giggle when you’re told not to (‘When you laugh other people suffer’) and embrace the idiosyncratic movement the programme warns about. (Unpretentious. Phew.)

Or you can dive in as deep as you like and revel at the complexity. WATCH IT! is an invitation, a warning and an order all at once. The performance is captivating, under taut direction and unassuming but effective choreography. The opening contemporary sound beats are exactly that – beats of footsteps, heartbeats, seconds on the clock as Houstoun recaps personal and cultural moments since 1980. There’s also retro music reminding you of the time before, the 60s, 1920s, 30s. The script is a joy – a tightly edited pick-and-mix of the minor and the major: ‘I’m on a bus. Pay in coins for the fare… Axis of Evil.’ Sentences hook together in ways that surprise: ‘Putting the mental into fundamentalist. Rushdie. The Price is Right. Right on his head.’

I’d WATCH IT! again to see what thoughts it sparks on a second viewing… and to confirm that Houstoun’s top worn inside-out with its label drawing shy attention to itself wasn’t a mistake but a signal that this is a piece about the back-to-frontness and inside-outness of any decade, but particularly this one, because it’s happening now.