A basic circus truth: everything is better with flames. Whether it’s a
limbo bar, a barrel being juggled by someone’s feet or a knife thrown at a smiling woman, set it on fire and double the thrills. Cirque Berserk is all about the big thrills, but they come alongside some stale acts and stylings. It is proudly unreconstructed circus of the big top variety, transplanted to the stage with a cast of global performers, from the Timbuktu Tumblers to a Mongolian contortionist who can shoot a bow and arrow with her feet (very impressive!).
The presentation is dated, as if contemporary circus’s embrace of story and character and self-critical eye never happened. There’s the troupe giving a moody stare out to the audience as if practising for their album cover; the overblown soundtrack like a David Copperfield magic show; the Chuckle Brothers-style clowning – although it has to be said the kids in the audience love the slapstick (this show definitely has family appeal) and a later sketch by the same pair blowing smoke rings with a haze machine is really charming.
There’s plenty of skill: teeterboards and hand balancing and a lot of improbable hanging from the ceiling, whether by foot, wrist, neck or a bit between your teeth. But Cirque Berserk excels when dealing with the biggest, baldest, high-stakes risk. Take Czech couple Toni and Nikol: he throws the knives, she swipes her hair side to side as they thud into the wood beside her; he chucks some mini axes or straps her to a spinning wheel and it’s hard to look, or to look away. All the while, she smiles an unreadable smile. What is she thinking as the blades spin towards her? That’s what I want to know.
The biggest thrill is Lucius Team from Brazil and their Globe of Death, motorbikes loop-the-looping inside a spherical cage like angry bluebottles trapped inside a lampshade, only way more dangerous. The noise, the lights, the risk, the person discreetly kneeling at the side with a fire extinguisher, just in case: all rev the excitement to an adrenaline-spiking max. This is compelling, daredevil stuff.
Cirque Berserk is at the Garrick theatre, London, until 11 September.
