Rumba

The feature-rich Rumba DVD package includes 5 special features: Rumba the next step (a ‘making of’ feature), deleted scenes, bloopers, a Q&A with Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, and finally the film’s theatrical trailer.

Of these, it is only the bloopers and the Q&A which really hit the spot. The making of feature is far too long (at more than half an hour) to hold the viewer’s attention and the handful of deleted scenes are interesting enough, but it’s very easy to see why they were excluded as they add nothing extra to the film. The bloopers are much more worthwhile, but again they would have benefited from more stringent editing – it feels as though they’ve just put all of their extra material on the DVD, rather than making it into a highlights package.

Comfortably the strongest feature of the DVD then is the excellent Q&A session with the star/writer/director duo of Fiona Gordon and Dominque Abel who, it turns out, are actually a theatrical double-act (hence the physical theatre so prevalent in the film). In a highly informative feature, we learn about their backgrounds, the genesis and development of the film, the challenges of working without a script, and - most importantly of all - the one and only message which the makers want you to take from the experience of watching the film: "He who steals a chocolate croissant falls from a cliff." Quite.