Review: Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble

A wall at the back of the room is being punched repeatedly, signalling the arrival of our topless, snarling hero. Furiozo runs at speed around the venue; as if pumped full of sugar and steroids – but when the music stops, he delicately reaches his arm out to shake hands with the audience in front of him. He fights a bear on stage – except it’s a tiny stuffed bear that he dramatically wrestles to the ground; he points a gun at the audience – except, it’s just his hand as an imaginary weapon; and he does an epic Evel Knievel-style daredevil jump over the crowd – except, it’s a tiny, plastic kid’s bicycle that we all collectively have to pass around. 

Man Looking for Trouble is ultimately a show of contradictions – harsh, toxic masculinity on one side and gentle, introspection on the other. There's an early realisation that there’s much more to Furiozo than just the grunting and hostility, and over a frenzied hour we, quite literally, see his huge heart.

Polish clown Piotr Sikora plays the rowdy character with a certain tenderness, his wordless physical comedy skilfully displaying the internal dichotomy between love and hate; all-out aggression and softness. Despite the punk-rock energy, the police chases and the masses of cocaine soundtracked by Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’, we’re rooting for this hooligan, willing him to break out of the cycle of violence that starts and ends this surprisingly touching show.