Shipwrecked on its own ethereal beauty, somehow joyous and yet bereft at the same time, the latest show from French circus creator James Thierrée is a marvel, unlike any piece of circus that you have ever seen. Acrobatics and dance, opera and contortion, flying and capoira all go hand in hand as a loose narrative unfolds that sails you into the far reaches of the imagination.
Beginning with a storm that makes the blasted heath in King Lear seem like a breeze, the show transports you to an enclosed world - a derelict place rather as you imagine Miss Havisham's house in Great Expectations - where a group of people appear to have been marooned. What follows is somewhat like a game that adults play with child-like seriousness, in which there are insiders and outsiders, a group and individuals, the balancing acts of maturity, the sheer delirium of letting go and swinging high.
The radio crackles as if offering memories and messages from another distant, half-remembered world.
A set of ornate gates become a barrier through which only some can slip and others must play out a password with their bodies; a three-seated sofa, which four are struggling to occupy, becomes an absurdist picture gallery with disembodied legs and a detached head reading a book. There is even a pantomime-style horse and a brilliant demonstration of the domino effect.
What's so fantastic about the show - which certainly isn't intended for the youngest members of the family - is that it is so playful and yet also a wild emotional tempest. Its clowning is not buffoonery, but light and witty - and therefore all the more painful. There is something about the show that reminds you of a modern art gallery where the pictures and installations have come to life and walked off the walls. It will blow you away.
· Ends Tuesday. Box office: 08703 800 400.
