CIRQUE: THE GREATEST SHOW – Doncaster CAST – Sept 7th 2024

CIRQUE: THE GREATEST SHOW – Doncaster CAST – Sept 7th 2024

In the middle of the last century, masses of people visited Big Tops up and down the land to enjoy the grand spectacle of a circus like Billy Smart’s or Chipperfield’s. Masses more would watch broad arrays of top-quality circus acts on TV variety shows like Sunday Night at The London Palladium – from jugglers, plate-spinners, blindfolded knife throwers, trapeze artists, acrobats, contortionists and clowns to magicians, musicians, ventriloquists and singers. Nowadays, opportunities to witness these breathtaking skills are far fewer but Cirque’s touring stage shows bring chances to sample some.

Dancing, light-show extravaganzas of great colour and beauty with fireworks and shimmering arrays of glittering costumes ensure 2024’s Cirque: The Greatest Show sparkles brightly all the way as it skillfully integrates a flow of glitzy song and dance with humorous interludes and edge-of-danger acrobatic spectacles. Thanks to a throbbing soundtrack and the live singing of big showstopper belters and ballads, the mood of uplift and exhilaration rarely flags.

Song and dance, sometimes centre stage, also accompany various acrobatic performers, who also join the dance routines when the right way up. Pounding, echoing decibels and the big, earnest singing in solos, duets and trios almost border on manic at times, especially in the first half, travelling from From Now On towards City of Lights, Rocket Man, I’m Still Standing, Roxanne and the like, and eventually into a powerfully rousing finale of Come Alive and This is Me. Most welcome, then, are the contrasting oases of calm from the quieter comic interludes, created by comedian, actor, magician, Christian Lee who provides a narrative thread through the show and helps maintain continuity as props get carefully manipulated behind the scenes. With no MC speaking directly to the audience (just an odd voiceover), it’s up to Lee, via his gentle, silent humour, to build up a warm rapport with the audience, which he does beautifully.

Totally silent, Lee’s persona is that of a (non-spiky) mime artist with traditional white face and stripy top, who lives entirely in a swirly world of colourless black and white. When he wins a Technicolor TV set, though, he’s pulled into an exciting, glitzy, showbiz world of stunning colour. His charm wins everyone over as he grabs up his giant TV remote control and interacts directly with the audience via facial expression, mime and Harpo Marx whistle. He includes a coat and handstand dance, the Tommy Cooper bottle/glass routine and also welcomes volunteers onstage for hilarious shenanigans with an invisible door, a surreal windbag, a levitating table and a unicycle.

Meanwhile, frightening feats of mind-boggling strength, coordination and artistic beauty, performed by bodies consisting of nothing but supple muscle and impossible flexibility, bring edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting moments, filled with wows and winces of wide-eyed wonder as aerial acrobats and contortionists dangle, balance, fold and stretch at all angles from cube frames and chandeliers, hoisted on high; as roller-skating bodies spin and fly out; as balls get juggled up and down stairs in alarming numbers, or as one juggler manages to play with fire without getting burnt. The James Bond theme plays as crossbow stunts fire across the stage and the audience keeps its fingers firmly crossed, while the sheer beauty and skill of Billy George’s spinning LED wands and his gyroscopic acrobatics are really something to behold: spinning in a Cyr Wheel hoop, infused with fabulous, ever-changing LED patterns, he’s akin at times to an, agile animated, Da Vinci sketch. Every act reflects long hours and years of hard work.

And the illusion of countless, truly magical, split-second costume changes? Well, it has to be unseen to be believed!

Eileen Caiger Gray