Circus used to happen in big tops. The Underbelly Boulevard is a very small top, a venue where the fire-breathers almost singe your eyebrows and the roller-skaters leave eau de axle grease lingering up your nose. Sophie’s Surprise 29th is a circus and cabaret show masquerading as a birthday do, where a conceit thinner than the tissue on your party hat is spun around a series of death-defying acts. There’s no safety net, nor any reassuring margin between audience and performers. You realise with a gulp that were this or that aerialist to lose their grip, it’s not just their neck on the line, but quite possibly yours too.
That’s part of the thrill, of course, and there are thrills, and repeated involuntary barks of “come off it!” on my part – when Josie Jones goes airborne with her fire act, and creates a ring of sudden flame above our heads, or when skater Isis Clegg-Vinell spins like a pinwheel while attached to sidekick Nathan Price by headband alone. In addition to all the usual rippling biceps, six-packs and whatnot, there are muscles being maxed out here I’m not sure I even have. There’s versatility, too: repeatedly, to my amazement that these performers can do this, I find myself additionally astonished they can do that as well.
That’s all quite enough to deliver what Clegg-Vinell describes as “a ‘get together with your mates and a bevvy’ kind of show.” The audience won’t be disappointed, and may not mind that the house party concept is underdeveloped, give or take the odd acrobatics routine framed as two boys fighting over a girl. Some of the meta commentary is have-cake-and-eat-it, as Katharine Arnold’s plain Jane turned femme fatale makes a sarky remark about the male gaze, and Price critiques the class politics of a show that later uses the word “chav” uncritically. Comic relief Dru Cripps’ interludes are little more than filler: some duff call-and-response antics with the crowd, nudity, some lyrically weak improvised songs. Suspend your critical faculties, though, and these various suspended daredevils are very easy to enjoy.
At Underbelly Boulevard, London, until 28 June
