blowing audiences’ minds

heart-pounding, gravity-defying treat

Returning home from Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia at the Royal Albert Hall, I posted a quick mention on Instagram. The next morning there were several likes and comments from performers in the show. We expect that sort of engagement after shows from small companies, in small venues, but not so much after shows that list 14 different credits…just for the programme! It was a valuable reminder that while Cirque du Soleil is a juggernaut, it carries individual artists who train, ...

The touching and unlikely escape of a Holocaust survivor

It’s a warm, barmy evening along the South Bank, just the type of evening that makes the Underbelly festival a perfect place to be. Within its inner hub, the bars and food outlets are buzzing with activity, the whole place crowded as people wait to enter one of the two tents for the evening’s shows, or maybe just enjoy a drink and the atmosphere the place has to offer. Given how many people there are, the latter seems very likely ...

Black clad, sparkly and glamorous, Bernie Dieter is the suitably bawdy host to the Little Death Club, inspired by the Kabarett Club of the Weimar republic.  Following the lifting of censorship laws the Weimar club performances were dominated by two main themes, sex and politics.  This updated version is light on the politics, choosing instead to be a celebration of difference and urging everyone to be what they want to be.  You are treated to non-stop cabaret acts; comedy, singing, ...

Sitting in a busy Jackson’s Lane auditorium five minutes in to Proteus Theatre’s Macbeth I was smiling, totally convinced by the setting and excited about what was to come. Presumably thanks to the involvement of movement consultant, George Mann, the opening was a tightly choreographed recreation of a 1980’s financial trading floor, full of wit and in-your-face charm. Twenty minutes in, however, an uneasy feeling was growing that the evening might have already peaked. By an hour in, impressive physical ...

Pros: The set. The sound design. The projection. The lighting. Cons: Far too many people in the audience filming the show on their phones. A silvery particle spins and tumbles from above, setting in train an evolutionary journey from primordial soup to space exploration. Well that’s the idea, anyway. More prosaically, Totem is a high-spec review show, in which circus acts, loosely themed around ideas of man’s evolution and environment, are interspersed with quirky comic vignettes. The circus acts are ...

Pro’s: It’s so much more than cabaret and acrobats as each performer gives their character personality that draws the audience in even more. Con’s: As always at the Underbelly, the views can often be obscured without any banked seating. The beauty of live performance is that anything can happen. It be the same script every time, but there is always a difference here, an error there, or an accident can occur. When the show in question is Black Cat: Bohemia, a ...

Pros: Playful and inventive acrobatics from award winning circus company Cons: Transitions between set pieces were sometimes meandering, and spoken text got lost in the large tent space. Award-winning circus company Barely Methodical Troupe’s latest show has a cool, other-worldly feel about it. Four performers, dressed in blue, manipulate what looks like a long tension-band (also blue), as the soundtrack of drips and static reinforces the dreamy, unstable atmosphere. The tension-band was fascinating to watch – catching acrobats like spiders ...