Deliver me from Spinning Plates - Monkey: The Journey to the West

Monkey is apparently based on a Chinese legend with music from Damon Albarn and animation by Jamie Hewitt, both of Gorrillaz. Along with their work is the often astonishing acrobatics of 40 performers on stage. The first scene is called "The Birth of Monkey and his Quest for Immortality". Immortality is achieved by the third scene where, with simian glee, Monkey trashes what appears to be a celestial tea party and eats the peach of immortality. There are another six scenes, each set in such locations as an underwater crystal palace (compete with suspended singing starfish), the Volcano City and Paradise. Having achieved his Nietzschian goal, monkey is incarcerated for 500 years after which he joins a young pilgrim looking for sacred scriptures. Their search is rather unfocused and this goal is soon abandoned, or their discovery was lost by me through the daring use of blue subtitles on a black surface, so quite what the purpose of the last five scenes is other than pointlessly clever acrobatics I am not sure. Each of these follows the same template: acrobatics to set the scene, the disruptive arrival of Monkey and gang, gleeful slaughter by Monkey to initial shock but eventual participation by his companions. By scene seven my forehead was resting on the metal rail in front of me. Catatonia was beginning to set in by this point, but this deliverance was prevented by Mr Albarn's attempts at martial music which at times verged on the sub-Gilbert-&-Sullivan. Thus, by the final scene when you thought you'd seen everything, out come the spinning plates which torture at least I thought I had been spared. Jamie Hewitt's animation is the best thing about the show, especially the way it combines with the acrobatics, but this is only used to link the first three scenes. Either money ran out or he possibly felt that he had nothing to contribute without the semblance narrative.