Written by Eleanor B for Theatre and Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review. All views are our own

Follow Me, performed by Belgian duo Be Flat, is a parkour-based walking tour through a city — this time taking over Norwich as part of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

As the audience are filed into a courtyard, we’re greeted by a towering stack of camping chairs with absolutely no context as to why they’re there. As the performance begins, we’re introduced to Thomas Decaesstecker and Ward Mortier, both members of the Be Flat team. Within minutes, one of them is scaling the side of a building, effortlessly climbing a drainpipe and balancing across windowsills. Once both performers properly emerge, it becomes immediately clear that this is going to be a fun, interactive and wonderfully silly show. The audience are each handed one of the previously mysterious camping chairs and guided out to begin the walking tour.

As Be Flat are Belgian, there’s very little spoken instruction throughout the performance, mostly just repeated cries of “Allez!” whenever it’s time to move somewhere new, or moments where it becomes obvious we simply need to copy whatever the performers are doing. Somehow, the lack of explanation only makes the whole thing feel more playful and immersive.

Decaesstecker and Mortier are incredibly talented acrobats, and that’s obvious from the outset. Somersaulting down side streets to the bewilderment of local residents, scaling theatre walls and dangling from bridges, you genuinely never know what to expect from one location to the next.

The chairs themselves become far more than somewhere for the audience to sit. Throughout the performance they transform into props and instruments, whether we’re drumming on them, hooking them around our waists to form a conga line, or flapping them around like birds. It constantly pulls the audience into the performance, making everyone feel involved rather than simply watching from the sidelines.

As the show wound its way through the outskirts of the city centre, it naturally drew confused yet delighted looks from passers-by, something the performers clearly revelled in. They regularly gestured for people to join in or stop and watch, blurring the line between audience member and unsuspecting bystander.

What makes Follow Me so impressive is the way it completely transforms familiar spaces. Alleyways, bridges, courtyards and side streets become playgrounds, stages and obstacles, turning parts of the city most people would usually walk straight past into something exciting and full of possibility. By the end of the show, Norwich itself feels reintroduced to the audience — playful, unpredictable and viewed from an entirely new perspective.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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