Chasing the rush

What do you do if you're an actor but there aren't any shows you fancy being in? If you're Diqui James, the answer is easy: you make your own. But we're not talking fringe one-man efforts here, for James is a man who thinks big - he and his mates were the gang behind De La Guarda, the hottest ticket in town during its year-long run at the Roundhouse in 1999.

A crazed collision between daredevil circus tricks, rock'n'roll and spellbinding theatre, De La Guarda became a global phenomenon along the lines of Stomp or Cirque Du Soleil. It would have been easy for James to keep riding the gravy train. But he got itchy feet. 'I was in Las Vegas in a massive hotel room and I was thinking, "What am I doing here?" I knew I needed the intensity of creating something new - although everybody just wanted us to do the same thing all over again.'

But doing the same thing is not the reason James, born and bred in Argentina despite the surname, got into performing. Against his family's wishes he trained as an actor but quickly realised straight theatre was not his thing and instead drew his inspiration from the freewheeling experimentation of street theatre.

'De La Guarda started because there was nothing in Buenos Aires that I and my friends wanted to see. We wanted a show that had our kind of energy. We wanted De La Guarda to be like a rock spectacle. For many young people, it was the first time that they came to the theatre, it brought people in who thought theatre wasn't for them. It was an event.'

So now there's Fuerzabruta (which translates as Brute Force), the perfect choice to re-open the spectacularly refurbished Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, where De La Guarda made such a splash. But it's a rather different building James and his hardcore crew will be revisiting. With a total budget of £29.7million, the redevelopment includes the restoration of the building's central glass lantern, allowing natural light into the building for the first time since it was painted over in the 1860s.

With a main space able to hold 1,800 seated and 3,300 standing, together with a studio theatre, the Roundhouse is set to become one of London's leading venues. Central to the scheme is Roundhouse Studios, a set of facilities aimed at nurturing London's young creative talent. In that context, you couldn't get a more inspirational choice of opening show than Fuerzabruta.

For despite the scale of the Fuerzabruta operation, which includes ingenious floating tanks and giant billowing silver clouds for the performers to frolic in, the punk spirit remains intact. 'We have a different way of doing things to other companies,' says James. We do everything ourselves. We do the music, we make the sets. We have our own warehouse and we build our own stuff - it takes a lot of experimenting to see what will work.

'It's about trying to get the audience to feel they are experiencing everything for the first time. It's not meant to be comfortable. It's like you're waking up inside a dream and surprise is your state of mind.'

There's no doubt Fuerzabruta taps into the same elemental energy forces as De La Guarda, but it's very much its own beast. James has added a human dimension to his trademark stunts, sweeping the audience into the centre of a storm that takes place among and above them, the attention continually zapped in a fresh direction by a whirlwind of action.

'The most exciting thing is when you change things after every performance,' James says. 'It's never finished, but at a certain point you have to let go. It's all about trying to create that adrenaline rush thrill of chasing around a football ground. It's danger, it's thrilling, it's beautiful. And it's real.'