Dear ‘I Don’t Like You’: I quite liked you. You made me laugh, dodge flying unicycles, and mourn musical instruments – our time together was brief yet wonderful.

I went into ‘I Don’t Like You’ with roughly zero preconceptions – all I knew was from the flyer, meaning all I knew was that there was facepaint and rosy cheeks involved.

The show began a little late, and we were given Chupa Chups as an apology (if you ever wrong me in any way, lollipops are a surefire way to get back on my good side). We went upstairs at Club Voltaire and while the couches at the front quickly filled with fellow attendees, we not so bravely took seats further back.

Dangling above a big X on the stage was a large blade (made of cardboard), with ‘SWORD’ written on it for any still unsure. The opening of the show focused on the attempts of each character to trick the other into standing on the X, using amazing physical comedy and a lot of rule breaking. This kind of set the tone for the plot, but in between assassination attempts and psychological warfare were moments of darkness and light – Patch Blank unicycling with the help of an audience member, and a monologue from Andrew Milne about the fragility of humankind, along with some hardcore balloon popping. Although some parts had us in pure hysterics, we were usually quickly sobered by something darker, or in some parts, it was the excessive darkness that gave us the giggles along with pause.

Bring along your singing voice – the crowd participation song finishes with a bang that you’ll want to be part of.

‘I Don’t Like You’ is on for the rest of this week. You’ll like it, even if it doesn’t like you. Okay, I’m done with the name puns now, promise.

-Jasmin
Jasmin Ashton is a PR student and designer from Melbourne who has a lot of feelings about pretty much everything and a need to share them. Find her at @Jasmanna.

‘I Don’t Like You’ runs 22 September to 4 October at Club Voltaire.