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If you stepped through the looking glass into one of those little handbills you see on lamp-posts telling you that Dr Muba Ngorhahangee (or whoever) can heal of you of anything from cancer to a broken heart – and can give you muti to win your court case and an abortion on the side, you might find it looks a lot like the surreal Afro-magical world evoked in Quack!

That, and a good dose of New Orleans Voodoo thrown in for good measure.

“Visually compelling” is the description my fellow theatre-goer came up with. And it fits perfectly. She is, after all, a performing arts aficionado.

But both of us struggled a bit with the narrative, and I don’t know how much harder this mini-mind wrestle would have been if we hadn’t read the programme first, which tells you that this is the story of a man dying of  fever in hospital who, in his delirium, escapes to a world in which he is a powerful healer who uses alchemy, psycho-babble and quackery to heal his adoring audiences who put their dreams, hopes and desires into his collection plate (the practices of some evangelists spring to mind here).

What the programme doesn’t mention is that there’s a story of unrequited love in there as well.

The play is in line with the high standard of work we have come to expect from the theatre company which created it: From the Hip: Khulumakahle (FTH:K), who have carved a niche for themselves in working with and for the hearing impaired, creating non-verbal theatre in which masks play a prominent role.

The use of amazingly expressive and evocative masks is a trait they use very effectively, and director Rob Murray appears to love conjuring up theatrical tricks that offer rewarding surprises, but can, if overdone, simply get in the way.

The challenge with working with masks, and being non-verbal, is that the body has to be as expressive as the mask, if not more so, or it risks being eclipsed. And the four actors – with the exception of Taryn Bennet who exudes menace through every pore in her role as the bodyguard – need more work here.

I think the lack of bodily expression is what causes the narrative to become murky in places, something which left me trying to figure it out a lot of the time rather than just being transported into this fanstastical Afro-gothic world.

Non-verbal theatre also runs the risk of being too mimetic, with there being too many gestures of the me-me-you-you type. FTH:K’s extraordinary Pictures of You doesn’t fall into this trap at all, but Quack has elements of it.

That said, this is the first time the play is being shown, and no doubt post-Festival it will coalesce into a piece of work as brilliant if not better than Pictures of You, it certainly has promise.

 Keep an eye on this play. It’ll soon be another feather in the cap for this award-winning company. And see it here if you can: I doubt you’ll regret it, and it will only make a second viewing in a theatre in your hometown or at next year’s Festival that much the richer.

Oh! And the soundtrack, as is usual for James Webb, is amazing, and if you simply go to see this show for its visuals and its sounds, you won’t be disappointed.

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