Take Me Somewhere tucks audiences up in bed, takes them to a last supper and delights with a paddling-pool comedy-tragedy
A nurse puts a steadying hand on my back and guides me to bed. She takes off my shoes, dresses me in soft pyjamas and hands me a VR headset. Mum will be along soon to read a bedtime story, she says. ZU-UK’s tender encounter Within Touching Distance is part of Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow’s biennial festival of wild-hearted international performance. With a teddy bear pressed into my hands, this is a deceptively gentle start to my day, which ends with a queering of the Apostles and a greased-up naked man being hand-fed fish.
Within Touching Distance is a slow act of care-taking, walking one audience member at a time through the course of a life, from being read a story as a child to clutching a walking frame in old age. Blending the physical with the digital, this smartly choreographed piece fights against technology’s lack of intimacy; when I’m watching “Mum” squeeze my shoulder in my VR goggles, I feel my shoulder squeezed for real. When she wiggles my toes, I feel each one pinched in perfect time with the image. I’d have thought being caressed by a stranger would be disorienting, but I’m so snug in bed that the contact only feels comforting and safe.
