Swing Stars

Every night for the past two months Decky and his Bronco mates go out and risk life and limb to bring us a new theatrical experience. And between them they have accumulated a startling collection of injuries.

From cracked ribs to fractured shoulders, gashes to the head and broken elbows. The cast have put themselves through it. And their motive? Because they love it, none more than Decky himself, aka Ben Winger.

Ben, 22, plays Decky, a nine-year-old who finds himself badly bullied because he can’t do a bronco (an acrobatic move on a swing), and from the sounds of things, bronco-ing can be outrageously dangerous.

And yet whether they are performing in the middle of a Glaswegian housing estate or as part of Oxford Playhouse’s Plays Out programme in Florence Park, the response has been overwhelming. “You have to respect the swings,” Ben smiles.

So how did Ben train for this? “I was an actor until then, so we all had to do training for the parts. It was almost a refresher course because we all remember doing stuff on swings when we were younger, whilst other aerial manoeuvres had to be learned from scratch. But the physicality of the show is overwhelming. I spend the whole hour running about and my first thought when I read the script was, ‘Am I going to have the energy to see this through?’.”

A boot camp was deemed the only answer and the crew endured hours of conditioning training, two hours of acrobatics a day and a challenging fitness routine to bring them to peak physical condition So how’s it been going? “Well, on the first night I failed to do the bronco so I waited until the audience had left, threw the swing up and it came down on my head, cutting my head open. And my hands are really cut up and callused, although they have toughened up a bit now. It’s pretty dangerous, but we try not to take additional risks because we’ve got another month and a half on tour,” Ben laughs.

“And even if it rains it’s good. You feel more like a kid getting messy without worrying about it – something about throwing yourself onto a waterlogged pitch and getting really grubby and not caring,” he smiles.

“But I am a small guy and got bullied at school for it. My way out was humour, but Decky doesn’t have that. He just has determination on his side to bronco, but however hard he tries he just can’t do it. So yes, it is a coming-of-age story, but it’s daunting and beautiful and very truthful.”

And presumably, because it’s outside, Decky Does A Bronco reaches a whole new audience. “Yes because we did some free shows in town squares, village greens and in the middle of housing estates, and at some points we had the whole community coming out of their houses to watch.”

At the Edinburgh Fringe they sold out. So what’s the attraction? “It’s a very emotional play – everything you need inside of an hour,” Ben explains. “And it’s so well put-together and takes you on such an emotional journey. It’s incredible because in the first half it’s warm and funny and then it pulls you in and then rips you apart.

“All I know is that when it’s all over I’ll never be able to walk past a swing park without wanting to go and do a bronco.”

* Decky Does A Bronco runs at Florence Park, East Oxford, from next Tuesday to Sunday. 7.30pm Box office on 01865 305305.