Oz is up for the larks

Who else would have squawking parakeets goofing about on the flying trapeze? Humans dressed as squawking parakeets, that is. Or a couple of mildly S&M dames enjoying each other's company, as it were, on the high swing?

Where else would you see a contortionist verging on the grotesque, or a strongwoman with a blue-lightflashing bikini strapped across her emphatically robust loins, or a musical director who's a dead ringer for an all-too-knowing Jason King?

Nowhere except Circus Oz, and watching them go at it hammer and tongs is immense good fun. True, purists will easily ID technically better acts, and the bit of the Oz mission statement about "gender equity" has a sellby date in the last century, but who cares?

Circus Oz has an informality and generosity that lets you in on the joke. In fact, the joke is on them, and this transfer gives the audience a happy, smiley advantage.

So much for the theatre theory, but what of the show? Well, it's pretty good.

The opening act involves setting almost everything alight (drums, bikes, wheels), with the smell of rocket fuel, or whatever petroleum product the health and safety bods allow in the Royal Festival Hall, wafting out over the stalls and somehow setting the tone for the rest of the show.

Next comes a happy-sad clown, hanging upside-down high above the stage. He is stoically baffled by his inverted suspension, with everything the opposite of what he expects. Things that look good turn out bad. A comic mirror of tragedy, as someone once described the clown.

Also good was the pleasingly foxy juggleress, the very excellent trick cyclist sweetly serenaded by the violinist, and the human cannonball routine. This involved actually firing a man from a giant gun, and it looked genuinely dangerous. Just think of the insurance premiums.

Until 5 September. Information: 0870 4050050.