Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
The characters speak gibberish and the music is beautiful...
Tim Bennett talks to MARION McMULLEN about travelling the world with sexy spiders and incredible insects in Cirque du Soleil’s arena spectacular, OVO
You’ve worked as an actor, singer, dancer, choreographer and director. How did you become artistic director of Ovo?
IN 1992 I saw Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica in LA. I watched them perform on the pier and just fell in love with everything. It was different to anything I had ever seen before.
I was still working as a performer then, and I was a dancer not an acrobat, but I thought ‘I want to work with these guys one day.’
I was later directing in Las Vegas and Cirque du Soleil was there as well and I kept in touch.
I joined Ovo about a year and half ago and I will stay with it until it closes a few years from now, or they move me to another show.
The show is a celebration of nature and co-existence and features a lot of bugs. Do you have any fear of insects?
(LAUGHS) No, our spiders and beautiful and sexy and dangerous and nothing at all like the ones you find in hotel bedrooms and outside.
I would say Ovo is for everyone of all ages. Like all of Cirque du Soleil’s shows, it’s colourful and acrobatic with imaginative costumes and make-up.
It’s universal and there is no language barrier. The characters speak gibberish in the shows and the music is beautiful.
The show has visited 61 cities since the arena tour began in 2016. Do you enjoy travelling?
EVERY country offers something new and different and I love embracing the local cuisine. Maybe it’s my heritage but I really enjoy Polish, German and Russian cuisine.
I’m a meat and potatoes type of guy and I just love the heavy northern European meals.
We’re in Russia at the moment. We started the arena tour in north America and then headed to Europe and will soon be coming to the UK.
I have never been outside of London and I’ve never been to Scotland or Ireland, so I’m looking forward to experiencing all these different places and maybe head to some distilleries along the way in Scotland.
I’d also love to see some football games at classic grounds if I can.
Can you speak another language?
(LAUGHS) I’m learning quickly. We have 21 different countries represented in the show who speak 17 languages. English is the only language I am fluent in, but I spent time in Germany and I can function in German. I know about 10 words in every different language in every different country we go to – enough to get by.
The language of the tour is English, but the Chinese contingency has an interpreter to make them feel comfortable.
Do you ever get homesick?
HOME is Las Vegas. I lived in New York for most of my life, but went to work in Vegas and stayed really. We work for 12 weeks with the show and then have a two-week break, so every two and a half months we get the chance to go home and cook for ourselves.
I have 16-year-old twin daughters, who are based in Manhattan and they have seen the show.
(Laughs) I tell each one the other is my favourite.
When did your love of performing begin?
WHEN I was a small child in elementary school, I did my first play. I just fell in love with it.
Then I went to high school and university to study and then worked as a dancer.
No-one in my family was involved in performing. My parents would go and see plays and musicals and I just got the bug.
A dancer’s life is very up and down though, and it’s one of the reasons I went into directing. It was the right time in my career. I was on the road more than I was home for a lot of times.
Do you travel light?
I’M an expert when it comes to packing for a tour, but I’m always learning tips from other people. I always pack batteries – always got to have batteries with you – and a facecloth. So many hotels in Europe don’t seem to include a facecloth for some reason. We’re allowed a maximum of two suitcases on tour and I always stay just under the weight limit.
There are a lot of jaw-dropping acts. Do things ever go wrong?
BIG things almost never go wrong, Safety is by far our top priority and we leave nothing to chance.
Everyone has checklists because many of the acts are inherently so dangerous. Safety is high priority. Everything is double and triple checked.
It tends to be the small things that go wrong – like a prop is forgotten.
The organisation involved, especially when we are moving the show, is huge. But it’s so very satisfying, so artistic and creative. It’s just magic.
Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo is touring to eight cities throughout the UK from August 16.
Go to cirquedusoleil.com or livenation.co.uk for ticket details.