Take a group of disparate, disillusioned, East London school misfits, who amused themselves during break-time by attempting increasingly ambitious gymnastic moves and feats, and fast forward to 2017 when the same group are touring the world with their ingenious circus show which is making global headlines.

The Barely Methodical Troupe is the result, currently preparing to screech into Oxford Playhouse after a global tour that has seen their athletic, diverse and novel moves stun audiences from Brazil to New York and South Africa.

Mixing circus tricks with martial arts and urban disciplines like street dance and free running, the all-male line-up’s first show Bromance premiered at Edinburgh Fringe and went stratospheric, largely helped by social media where YouTube videos of their choreography went viral.

Now back with the ‘difficult’ second show Kin, BMT has loosened its all-male criteria to include the marvellously able Nikki Rummer, and doubled the trio’s size with two new male members.

“We needed to change the format otherwise things get boring and knew Nikki from circus school (The National Centre For Circus Arts in North London) and she is amazing because she is so powerful on stage,” founding member Beren D’Amico tells me.

So why has it been so hard to come up with a new show?

“It’s like the difficult second album,” he grins.

“We based the original show Bromance loosely on Lord Of The Flies which was all about male companionship which was something everyone could relate to.

“So now people are expecting us to come up with something similarly hard-hitting. Put it this way, the pressure is on.

“But luckily we have been wanting to do a show with a bigger cast for a long time because the possibilities are infinite with six people, so this time around we were interested in seeing where we could take our theme using improvisation and choreography.

“In the end it took over eight weeks eight weeks to devise Kin which is about the desperate need to be liked in this age of social media.

“And yes it is dangerous, but we trust each other implicitly. In the end it all boils down to trust.”

Yet, despite the glowing reviews and BMT’s stellar reputation, Beren still finds it hard to believe their success.

“It took us a long time to accept that we could make a living this way, that being in a circus act was a job,” he laughs, “because it doesn’t feel like work.”

“It’s what we did anyway, we just didn’t know you could make a career out of it, which is very lucky because I’m literally rubbish at 99 per cent of everything else.

But while BMT came to fame overnight, it took a few years to get the novel company off the ground:

“Everyone else from circus school went on to do cabaret but that wasn’t what we wanted to do so we set up on our own instead.

“To start with it was really hard because at the beginning your body reacts against all of the moves because of an innate desire to save yourself.

“Our act goes against all your natural instincts and yet you have to give in to the other person and learn to let go, rather than reacting which goes against every grain in your body. But once you have learnt that trust and complicity, you are fine and learn to love it.

“And as I’m the small guy being thrown around in the air by the big guys it was a hard lesson to learn,” he chuckles.

“But we still didn’t know if we would ever get any recognition but we trained and trained and then created Bromance so we got lucky.”

Anyone who’s seen BMT will know that luck had little to do with it, and that the troupe’s dynamic, hard-hitting, brave, energetic, unique take on a narrative, has instead won over the nation’s hearts.

And the dream? “Well our bodies won’t be able to sustain this level of athleticism for long, so hopefully we can train up some new recruits and then go and lie on the beach,” Beren laughs, “because it does take it out of you.”

Kin

Oxford Playhouse

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