Circus: Xanadu
Giffords Circus, touring until 29 September (01242-691181) Running time: 2 hours (incl. interval) ★★★★★
Giffords Circus, whose latest spectacular, Xanadu, is touring England this summer, is “far removed from the fluorescent contortions of Cirque du Soleil”, said Susannah Clapp in The Observer. The defiantly oldfangled Giffords styles itself as a “village green circus”. It relies not on bombast and marketing spend, but on “sweetness, skill and spangle” – as well as “actually funny” clowning, and thrilling feats of acrobatic daring – to conjure up theatrical magic and keep its loyal audience coming back. And this year, by taking psychedelic pop music and Coleridge’s “mazy motion poem” Kubla Khan as his themes, director Cal McCrystal has woven together what could have been merely a string of impressive solo turns into a “free-flowing story”. The refreshments tent serves sherbet fountains; performers and band have headbands, granny specs, flowers in their hair and flared jeans; and in the big-top “pleasure dome” the audiences are wowed “as one moment of wonder rolls into another”. The whole thing works a treat.
The theme might be the summer of love, said Michael Billington in The Guardian, but these perfomers are no “woozy hippies but formidable athletes”. There’s Lil Rice, prodigiously whirling and twirling inside a huge hoop known as a Cyr wheel; Jacob D’Eustachio, a comedy juggler billed as “the man with the flying balls”; Anna Rastova, the trapeze artist performing daring feats high up in the big top; and there’s the Hungarian Donnert family, performing amazing acrobatics atop horses as they canter round the ring, including a backflip from one horse to another. Leading the comedy is madcap clown Tweedy, his mischievous eyes and red quiff suggesting an “anarchic version of Shakespeare’s Puck”. Tweedy proves a skilled acrobat and trick cyclist, but the highlight is a slapstick routine where he and his partner, Mr Fips, cover each other in goo and spray the audience with water pistols.
All these acts, and more, are “short, sharp, and enthusiastically inventive”, said Neil Norman in The Stage. And the period pop music and dancing are great fun, too. For just shy of two hours, Giffords lets you “surrender to the wonder of a world of delightful, charming vagabonds. The little circus with a big heart, it punches well above its weight.”