Counter Culture Review: The Dancing Plague
★★★★★
“There’s something deliciously Fringe about a show that invites you to “shake your a** and dance ’til you (hopefully don’t!) die,” and 1518: The Dancing Plague leans into that promise with full satirical commitment. Based on the very real medieval mass hysteria that had Strasbourg’s citizens dancing themselves into oblivion, Hannah Ponturo’s comedy arrives at theSpaceUK fresh from Los Angeles—armed with a sold‑out reading, a Daredevil Festival pedigree, and the kind of chaotic energy that thrives in late‑night Edinburgh.
At its heart is a queer romance between Katherine and Anna, two peasants whose long‑fractured relationship reignites just as the city collapses around them. It’s a smart dramatic anchor: while clergy and civic authorities scramble to contain the outbreak, the play keeps circling back to the human impulse to connect even when the world is wobbling off its axis. The production promised “uncanny parallels” to our own recent crises, and the show doesn’t shy away from them—Covid echoes, political absurdity, and the familiar spectacle of institutions panicking while ordinary people try to make sense of the mess.
We loved the drag devil/angel narrator
Ponturo’s writing has that LA‑meets‑NYC flavour: punchy, self‑aware, and unafraid of silliness as a delivery system for something sharper. The production, created with Open Variations Theater, fits neatly into their mission of reimagining lesser‑known stories with contemporary bite. You can feel the interdisciplinary New York influence in the way the piece layers satire, history, and outright party vibes into a single 50‑minute burst.
And yes, it is a dance party. The show wants you complicit in the hysteria—laughing at it, recognising it, maybe even feeling the tug of it. The absurdity of people dancing themselves to death becomes a mirror held up to the way we cope with uncertainty now: distraction as survival, movement as denial, rhythm as rebellion.
It’s messy, cheeky, knowingly ridiculous, and unexpectedly tender. Exactly the sort of Fringe show that sneaks up on you: you arrive for the chaos, and leave thinking about the systems that shape how we behave when everything goes sideways.
If you’re looking for a satire with historical weirdness, queer heart, and a healthy disrespect for authority, 1518: The Dancing Plague earns its place on your August shortlist.”
Reviewed by Pat Harrington at CounterCultureUK.com
