A Show Like No Other (if there'd been more storyline)

Cirque du Soleil poster - this image isn't mine

Often, if you've been doing homework all morning, like I have (filling in a workbook about a recent school trip to France, to be precise), then the whole afternoon has to be stuffed with exciting sights and sounds to refuel your senses. Matinee theatre productions spring to mind. And what better production to view after a morning of work than one of the world's most renowned and prestigious performance companies, the Cirque Du Soleil, and their current show, the (vaguely) Native American themed Totem, currently at the Royal Albert Hall, London, which I saw earlier today. Totem has a huge variety of different circus acts involved, from acrobats clad as sparkly lizards performing bar routines on the skeleton of a tortoise's shell, to a clown fisherman pulling all manner of things from the water to his fishing boat. Speaking of water, the way images were projected on to the stage was very realistic - I could even see the ripple of the waves during the beach acrobatics scene, where acrobatics dressed in swimsuits performed impossibly flexible shapes on small hoops attached to long ropes, above the mentioned beach, creating one of the most memorable acts in the performance.

However, despite phenomenal acrobatic sketches - "Love on the Trapeze" was a highlight, especially when the male acrobat hung from the trapeze using only his neck, there was no real thread connecting each act, so much that they could have all been from different productions. The diversity of performers, from the glittery catsuit clad dancer-acrobat that took centre-stage at the start and end of the performance to the Chinese unicyclists throwing golden bowls to and from each other's heads, seemed to ache for a plotline to tie them all together in to an elaborate fantasy tale. Native American folklore, from which the show is supposedly based, is swarming with tales like this, so I feel they could have adapted one of these, because aside the lizard-like creature on the theatre poster, the show has hardly any connection with Native America, which I had been anticipating when I first found out I was going to the show. However, all these negatives have no effect on the immense skill of the performers, and if you only want a reputable and extremely embellished circus (exactly what Cirque Du Soleil is) and don't care about the storyline or historical roots of the show, Totem will still be the great show that it advertises itself as.
- DP :)