Elf Lyons – Horses

In Horses, Elf Lyons charts the journey of her eponymous creatures through myth, legend and war in a series of gory sketches. Her equine protagonist Treacle provides ample opportunity for the clown to put her liquid physicality to use, from a birth scene to one about meat-grinding, plus plenty of other prancing in between.

This show includes so much blood it is eye watering, yet somehow it also contains none at all. So visceral is Lyons’ mime work, and so brutal is the torture of her characters, that the audience was constantly vocalising their repulsion. Horses reminded me of the way grotesquerie meets fantasy in Pan’s Labyrinth, only it wants you to laugh rather than cry.