Avanti Display: Crow at Birch Community Centre

Avanti Display’s Crow is a genre-defying live show that blends atmospheric music, sleight-of-hand magic, strange rituals and surreal cabaret into an intriguing twilight theatre experience. Combining live music, comedy, magic, poetry and projections, it’s the latest piece from one of the UK’s longest-established outdoor performance companies – now reimagined for an intimate indoor setting.

Created for small venues but shaped by Avanti’s bold outdoor roots, Crow unfolds as a 40-minute live experience where music, illusions and projections blur together in a way that’s hard to describe but oddly captivating. There’s a nest on stage. Eggs might get juggled. A crow-headed MC appears, disappears, and reappears. Instruments play, jokes land sideways, and something slightly magical simmers in the air.

At first, it looks like a serious gig. Three musicians arrive and begin setting up their instruments. But then things start to unravel. The score, by acclaimed composer Seaming To (Homelife, Robert Wyatt, Matthew Bourne), is interrupted by conjuring tricks, the cawing of crows, surreal projections and the presence of an egg. Curious and comic. Profound and absurd.

It’s part gig, part séance, part sideways comedy sketch. Audiences have described it as “brilliantly strange” and “totally unexpected.” One reviewer insisted it’s a show that “should immediately have a cult following,” while another likened it to “a gig possessed by spirits” or “Tommy Cooper meets Twin Peaks.” Ultimately, this is a show that resists any straightforward description – a curious twilight affair that’s funny, haunting and beautifully bizarre.

The evening opens with a live set from singer-songwriter Zoe Mulford, best known for ‘The President Sang Amazing Grace’ – a quietly powerful ballad inspired by Barack Obama’s eulogy following the Charleston church shooting. The song was named 2018 ‘Song of the Year’ by Folk Alliance International and has been covered by Joan Baez and Kronos Quartet featuring Meklit.

Crow has previously wowed audiences at Timber Festival, Stockton International Riverside Festival, and Kensington and Chelsea Festival. Its creative team includes Bill Palmer, Chris Squire, Paschale Straiton, Seaming To and Semay Wu, with words by Lou Glanfield (IOU) and dramaturgy by Mark Long (People Show). Audio-visual design is by Chris Squire (Impossible Arts).

This is a rare chance to catch a highly original touring production in an intimate community space. If you’re drawn to work that’s lo-fi, low-lit and slightly unhinged – in the best possible way – Crow is one to catch.