REVIEW: Cirkopolis - The Opera House, Manchester

Reimagining the circus for the 21st century is not an easy endeavour but Cirque Eloise certainly were able to do this with a distinct nod to the silent movies from the start of the 20th century and indeed with elements of 17th century commedia dell’arte. Cirkopolis is a series of vignettes exploring an escape from the mundanity of the working life in a dystopian city.

From the start we were presented with the central character – a comical young man who is rubber stamping page after page after page until he gets bored and starts fooling around at his desk. From this moment on we follow him as he encourages his fellow workers to leave their work and enjoy the moment. And enjoy it they do! The following scenes included magnificent feats of physical performance from daring group juggling to a balletic demonstration of the cyr wheel. A stunning use of the double-hooped German wheel was followed by a witty dance routine on the Chinese pole. We were given a masterclass performance with the diabolo – well with three at once! – which was stunning. Not all of the scenes included props – at one point, a performer danced all around the stage without once touching the ground – she was propped up entirely by the rest of the troupe and she moved around from shoulder to shoulder, head to head and walked on the hands of her companions. This really displayed fantastic strength and balance. The final scene involved all of the cast having a raucous time in the office, flipping each other from banquine to a teeterboard and showing off various aerial skills before landing on a crash mat. These acts were classic circus performances, perfected and polished by a small group of almost super-human troupers.

A 3D moving image projected onto the back wall was used at various times in the show to take us to different parts of this city. The imagery was mostly grey and intentionally dreary, with exposed clockworks and cogs reinforcing the idea of the grind of life. These visuals were very well made and added to the high quality entertainment. Costumes were mostly grey and workmanlike – office suits or boiler suits, but underneath these, flashes of colour represented something lying within each character and as they embraced freedom - more colour showed. The music too supported each scene, particularly the songs that brought a deeply emotive element to a couple of the solo scenes. In spite of the high quality and highly effective trappings of set and costume, reminiscent of films such as 'Metropolis' or 'Brazil', the narrative was disappointingly thin.

Transforming the circus for contemporary audiences has meant weaving storytelling in to the performance and some of the short scenes in Cirkopolis did tell a story very well – the artist on the cyr wheel, in a bright red dress, was almost balletic and was able to tell us of her loneliness and yearning without a single word. The “construction workers” setting up an impossibly long Chinese pole brought humour and efficiency to what would normally have been a mere scene change. Another beautifully crafted scene told us that the main protagonist too was lonely – he practised his flirting on a red dress hanging on a rail and subsequently performed acrobatic stunts on the rail. These scenes set us up for a story that never materialised and I think that Cirque Eloise was missing a trick here – it would not have taken much to weave these stories together more coherently and, in particular, to bring them to a more climactic finish.

That is not to say that the evening was not entertaining – it is really very difficult to describe exactly the unbelievable, literally breath-taking, stunts and acrobatics that occurred at a steady pace. The audience were mesmerised from the very start and appreciation was shown by much applauding, gasps, laughs and cheers. This was a thoroughly fantastic show with world-class performances.

Cirque Eloise is taking Cirkopolis on tour around Europe and the world and can still be seen this week in Norwich. They performed for only one night in Manchester, making it a real treat for the North West audience.

Reviewer - Aaron Loughrey

on - 6/10/18