BWW Reviews: CIRQUE DU CIEL SHANGHI, New Wimbledon Theatre, September 28 2011

The "Cirque" formula shows no sign of falling off the highwire of mass popularity, its latest incarnation wowing the house at New Wimbledon Theatre on a steamy September evening. Cirque du Ciel's Shanghi (on tour until 15 October) is a dizzying mix of acrobatics, balancing, tumbling, catching, spinning, falling, dancing and drumming that entrances and amazes an audience of kids, parents and grandparents.

Direct from China, the show's multi-talented young troupe perform a series of astonishing routines loosely held together by a treasure chest from which a girl pulls different toys that prompt the next mindblowing scene. China figures strongly in the show, with some beautiful photographs capturing the old and new China projected behind the performers, and modern and traditional Chinese music played throughout propelled by a drummer who is surely channelling the spirit of Keith Moon. Executing skills like these is no easy matter, and concentration is etched on the faces up on the stage, only breaking into smiles at the curtain call. If the show has a flaw, it is in a lack of humorous moments, but I guess it's hard to raise a smile dangling from a piece of curtain forty feet above the boards!

The Cirque formula keeps the pace high with the music driving the show forward and no breaks in the high jinks for animal acts or clowns. The end product sits somewhere between showbusiness and sport, circus and sensation, tradition and the twenty-first century leaving  the audience to emerge thrilled and blinking into the night exhausted just by watching - one wonders just how the performers feel at the end of this high octane extravaganza that pleases from first to last.