Nikola And His Travelling Lux Concordia! Weird And Wired – Adelaide Fringe Review

Treasury Tunnels at Adina Apartments Hotel Adelaide Treasury, Mon 20 Feb. Ola is definitely weird, and wired. Delivered, just, by a malfunctioning transdimensional time travel machine to the oddly appropriate Treasury Tunnels (whatever did they do in that spooky underground space?), he and his alter past ego Nikola share with us their adoration for geometry, science and (underplayed) mysticism, upon all of which they seldom agree, but since when was science a consensus proposition? There is much to fascinate as Ola exuberantly presents a unifying transcendent physical theory based on the behaviour of resonant frequencies, acoustic and electronic, harmonic waves and the synchronicity of all moments, with enough illustrations of magical numeric sequences (Golden Mean, PHI, Fibonacci and the like) to pique the interest and engage the Google thumbs of even the most ardent contra-geek. The whole is a pell-mell journey into the dimensionless space between infinity and conjecture, to deliver the message the future is now and we’re not going to do away with ourselves after all. Nikola’s appearances are mercifully few and brief. Perhaps intended as a reality check or to provide anchorage in real-time as foil for Ola’s excited intellectual wanderings, his existential angst is worthy of the most self-conscious teen spirit and as convincingly actualised. The accents (why faux-posh English for Nikola? Tesla, on whose theories this is loosely based, was Croatian/American) are symbolic rather than accurate. What shines is Geddes’ own fascination for a branch of alt-science, exemplified through the Ola persona and his personal postscript, as they encourage us to question conventional thought and read up for ourselves. Overall, it is entertaining and head-scratching, well tailored to young audiences grappling with “why science?” The energy is benignly intense. Co-creator Gail Fahey does an admirable job as the haunting voice of Higher Consciousness, one of the best ways to invisiblate an offstage prompt you will see. 3 stars Kate Battersby Nikola And His Travelling Lux Concordia! continues at Treasury Tunnels at Adina Apartments Hotel Adelaide Treasury, from 7.45 pm until Sat 25 Feb. Book at FringeTIX on 1300 621 255 or adelaidefringe.com.au. Click HERE to purchase your tickets. #ADLfringe