The main problem was the circus enjoyed only a limited scope within the story, isolated moments when it started to take off were quickly abandoned or repeated without enough variation to remain interesting. The story as well suffered from some nice ideas but a lack of originality or coherency – that gave it an unpleasantly studenty feel (don’t get me wrong, there is some incredible student theatre out there – but this wasn’t it). I also think that this impression was intensified by the inability of their budget to match their designs which left something that felt like bad 60s sci-fi.
That said there were elements that I liked – both the aerial performers had impressive moments and there was some beautiful images as they were backlit by spotlights against the glorious architecture of the church (though I ended up really wishing I could see this sort of thing in the round). I liked too the jerky, threatening action of the Balletbots, although the lack of raking in the church made a lot of the choreography difficult to see. The appearance of the clowns in the form of the Scavengers, also proved to be a highlight – they managed to be exceptionally expressive without any use of English and treated us to some trampoline and juggling. Though there wasn’t nearly enough juggling for my taste, as I’m a sucker for it (you can add this – alongside ukuleles and terrible jumpers – to the list of things that make me swoon) – just check out Florent Lestage to see how beautiful, lyrical and creative juggling can truly be.
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