In Italo Calvino's story The Baron in the Trees, a young nobleman defies his parents and escapes their rule by living in a tree for the rest of his life. In Fenêtres, the French circus artist Mathurin Bolze creates a living space that is entirely three-dimensional. With a trampoline serving as a floor, Bolze walks up walls, hops on to roofs and hangs out of windows. He breaks all the rules: gravity is subjugated to this bouncing Tigger of a man; alone and far above us in a world of his own, far beyond the reach of convention, Bolze looks down. I think he may feel pity for us earthbound individuals.
This new way of living and being is exquisitely beautiful to watch. Fenêtres doesn't only deal in surreal visuals and ideas but also in surreal sounds. It is as if every movement has its own sound as the everyday and the casually impossible collide.
On one level it is possible to enjoy the sheer physical display. But Bolze is never like a gymnast doing a turn. You never feel the slightest desire to gasp or clap these boundless feats because they seem so natural, even as you know they are improbable. It is as though his body is talking to us, that it has created its own language full of beauty, little jokes, introspections and jazzy riffs. He makes it look so easy, he offers the possibility that we may all be able to fly.
Watching Bolze tame gravity makes you feel as if you are a child with your nose pressed up against the sweet-shop window or waking from a dream in which you thought you could fly only to find yourself grounded. Not since Tom Stoppard's Jumpers has anyone put the bounce into philosophy - or philosophy into bouncing - with quite such verve and wit.
· Ends tonight. Box office: 020-7637 5661.
