This is a show that looks great . . . the costumes are sumptuous, and the acts flow smoothly through the services of a remarkable little man who introduces himself as "The Monkey King". His cat-like face is made up in a traditional Chinese monkey design, and he bounds quirkily here and there in his yellow cat-suit, addressing us in sonorous English tones that are clearly not his own. Nothing wrong with that! He is part jester, part cabaret act, and a great asset to this production.
We start with acrobats tumbling impressively, followed by seven girls each spinning five plates on rods held in each hand. They can even do this standing on their heads or forming human pyramids. A solo pot-juggler throws a huge blue-and-white pot - the sort of thing you'd get at a garden centre for a very large house plant - catching it (painfully I should think) on various parts of his anatomy, and juggling it as though it were as light as paper.
Many, including me, turn away as the beautiful lady contortionist forces her body into impossible positions while supporting trays of glasses on her hands and feet. She is framed by four girls holding more glasses who serve simply to enlarge the spectacle; a nice production touch. Then there are the Wu-Shu Shaolin warriors wielding swords, smashing bricks on their heads and impaling themselves on the points of spears; the hat jugglers, dressed like silver Michelin-men, doing a kind of Chinese Busby Berkeley routine - amazing - and a very clever dance by three of those huge stylised lions you see at festivals. A troop of acrobats dives and somersaults through a series of hoops - surely high-jump candidates for the Beijing Olympics!
My favourites, nominated, quite rightly, for the 2008 World Circus Awards, are the "Sensual Silks": a man and a woman flying high over the stage on swathes of silk in an aerial ballet; and without a safety-net, even though at one point the woman is hanging only by her toes from the toes of the swinging man. Grace and strength are beautifully combined here in a show that is impressive, and fun to watch throughout.
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