The performance came to life in 2012, with the Summer Olympics in London. It was a highly controversial time, when the British Government was adopting stricter brand protection measures, especially with an evolving list protecting use of words such as ‘Gold’, ‘Summer’, ‘Olympic’, ‘Games’, etc. To test the enforcement of these highly restrictive directives (which included fines of up to £20,000), Richard Dedominici created the Swivelympics, playing off the word ‘Olympics’ and ridiculing athletic performance to invent a pure office sport that anyone can play. It’s like a one-way ticket to international glory, where Lucy from Darlington still holds the record she set in 2015 with 48.5 rotations.

To the great surprise of the performance’s creator, it has been hugely successful and toured around the world, with stops at the National Theatre, the Boring Conference, Edinburgh Fringe, Latitude Festival, Festival of Thrift, Les Halles in Brussels, Anti Festival in Finland, and the inauguration of the prestigious Level 5 of the Tate Modern (London) in 2017. But the Swivelympics hadn‘t yet made its way to France.

That will no longer be the case when this highly popular British performer, who has become even more well-known since the adaptation of his satirical Redux Project (2015) on BBC Four, brings his performance to Tombées de la Nuit.