Highlights

I found the highlights on SkyArts pretty early on and loved them. So many great dancers. And the rain footage. Something beautiful about someone on display, hunched under an umbrella hiding out from the rain. Finally up there on display for their allotted hour and the poor plinther ends up cowering in the rain...but yet a smile. And then you know the plinther is enjoying their time despite the rain. But to be up there exposed, and hiding is an interesting tension I enjoyed.

There was also the one of an older gentleman who dresses up like one of Gormley's statues with the wide wings. And he puts on a dress and ends up naked by the end of his performance. He ends with a message urging everyone to get an HIV test since many don't know they are positive. It is a beautiful little edited vignette you should check out yourself here: www.skyarts.co.uk/site/plinth/?id=14

But really my favorite highlight is this guy dancing: www.skyarts.co.uk/site/plinth/?id=22 The narration is hilarious! He dances, knows he isn't a good dancer, but is having the time of his life up there. At one point he says there is nobody in the square watching his performance which conjures this beautiful image, theatre of the mind style, of an empty Trafalgar Square just before dawn with Ricki (Plinther 0765) dancing his ass off on a well lit stage. There is no dip in enthusiasm, no phoning it in because the audience has gone to sleep, no he keeps on keeping on, just doing his own thing as best he can. Awesome.