PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Durdham Downs, Bristol (Tue 27 Sept-Sun 16 Oct)

CIRCUS Candy floss! Popcorn! Have your picture taken with Mickey Mouse! It’s the end of a three-week run for the Netherlands National Circus, and the Downs are alive with the timeless – not to mention lucrative – sound of high-pitched pleading. Within the Big Top itself the thrills are just as traditional, although fortunately for the grown-ups in the audience they’re also a lot more impressive.

The company warms up with a little parade, before Juan Pablo Martinez arrives to show off his world-class juggling tricks, which include firing a battery of ping pong balls from his mouth and an inspired Mexican hats routine (pictured above). Other first-half highlights include a graceful aerial straps duo from Russia (Aleh & Nataliya), and a trio of impossibly supple Ghanaian tumblers called The Warrior Kings (pictured below), whose party piece is limbo dancing under soaring flames. Elsewhere, there are laughs to be had as a man eats dinner upside down – his shoes attached to a platform suspended from the roof – although funniest by far is the accident-prone trampolinist whose performance is a masterclass in physical control and comic timing.

The show re-starts spectacularly after the interval, as Brazilian quartet The Flying Neves take to the trapeze with some awe-inspiring catches and a jaw-dropping triple somersault – traditional circus skills at their very best. Unfortunately, a big chunk of the second half is dominated by the antics of Pom Pom, a lascivious clown whose pièce de resistance consists of making ‘enormous breasts’ gestures while playing a kazoo and driving a female audience member around in an imaginary car. By the time he’s dragged three bewildered-looking men from the crowd to re-enact the video to ‘I Want To Break Free’ (a joke clearly lost on the under 30s), it’s hard not to feel he’s done enough.

Happily, he’s followed by a girl spinning ten hula hoops while hanging from the roof, before Russian acrobats The Four Vasiliev pull off an extraordinary feat of balance that ends with a perfect landing on a flexible pole. Sub-Benny Hill clowning aside, this world-class circus is a huge hit, and deservedly so. (Adam Burrows)

Copyright Adam Burrows 2011