There is a whiff of something wistful, absurd and mordant about the title that bodes well for this devised show from the Brothers Marquez, set in a circus in Venice in the 1880s. The design, by Ashley Martin-Davis, captures all the tawdry glamour of backstage circus life - the indefinable but distinct mix of sequins and sadness that hangs around. As Pepo, one of life's sweet-faced clowns and shit-shovellers, observes: "You can smell the excitement." You can also smell death, for circus owners the Marquez Brothers are ruthless in their attempt to win favour with the Venetian Doge and think nothing of sacrificing the lion tamer to the lions ("We told you they were dangerous," they tell the audience, with immense satisfaction) and sacrificing the trusting, naive Pepo to their ambitions.
It is a pity that director Martin Duncan wasn't far more ruthless too. This is a show that sacrifices much of its potential to the easy laugh. Too often the Brothers Marquez simply come across as the Chuckle Brothers, which is selling themselves well short. These guys can not only do every accent from Brooklyn to Birmingham, and are brilliant quick-change artists, but they are real character actors, too, and have a knack of walking that tightrope between the sad and the surreally funny. When they really develop characters and relationships - as they do here with Pepo and his farting father, a man who feels love but is incapable of expressing it - the show takes off into another dimension.
Too often, though, the piece just falls into a sketch-format jokiness, as if afraid that the audience will switch off unless it is offered more laughs. This is a show that lacks the courage to be really convincing. To be really satisfying as a theatre show, it needs to be as stripped back as Martin-Davis's design. Take away all the padding (even if it is mildly entertaining padding) and you would have a show that would be shorter, much sharper and funnier, and that might even steal your heart.
