In 1997, Saltimbanco offered Britain its first taste of the Cirque du Soleil experience. Now the circus is back in town with the same show -and it's bigger, slicker and more spectacular than ever.
Whether it is also better depends entirely on your point of view: do you like your circus subversive, eccentric and dirty like Acrobat, or showy, sumptuous and squeaky clean like Cirque du Soleil? Saltimbanco is apparently an old Italian word for street artist, but I imagine the closest this lot ever get to the streets is the foyer of a Hilton hotel. The plush red-velvet setting of the Royal Albert Hall is just right for an evening that has an extravagant peacock gaudiness but no discernible heart or brain.
This is not to say it isn't skilful. Many of the acts are fantastic, and the cast constantly do things with their bodies that defy description. They somersault between two parallel tightropes high up in the arena; two bodies appear to fuse into one in an amazing hand-to-hand act of breathtaking strength and balance; and there is a wonderful juggler, almost insouciant about her skill. Jesko von den Steinen is a terrific clown, too, cleverly coaxing members of the audience into situations in which they might make fools of themselves but actually end up surprising themselves and excelling. That is a really rare skill, and one that many working in theatre and comedy could learn from.
No, the lack in this evening comes not from too little skill, but too much window-dressing. It is undeniably a spectacle: it has the soft rock music, dry ice, sparkly lights and people floating around as if they are part of a commedia dell'arte troupe or popping off to a masked Venetian ball.
It is unnecessarily distracting - just when you are admiring the Chinese Pole act your eye is drawn instead to people gyrating behind them in rainbow-hued Lycra. It gives the impression that the circus skills are incidental, and that what is really on offer is a cross between an extravagant stadium rock concert and one of those showy in-house corporate entertainments that were fashionable in the money-making 1980s. If that tickles your fancy, fine, but you are buying top-of-the range eye candy, nothing more.
· Until February 9. Box office: 020-7957 4090.
