She Would Walk the Sky/Company 2, Roundhouse - circus review

Circus productions often aim for eye-popping spectacle but Australia's Company 2 adopts a more intimate approach. In She Would Walk The Sky the set-pieces, with a few exceptions, do not make one gasp, yet the show, part of the Circusfest season, has a quirky, ramshackle appeal.

Finegan Kruckemeyer's poetic script is supposedly inspired by some untranslatable paperwork discovered in the Roundhouse's foundations. One should, however, ignore this flight of fancy and just enjoy the acts as they fly around the stage, all vintage dresses and leotards, accompanied by live gypsyish music.

The stand-out stunt comes from mustachioed Mozes, who spins around a vertiginous rope at a dizzying pace without a safety net. Elsewhere there are athletic surprises on a bicycle that one never sees in the Tour de France. Occasional slips remind us of our frailty. A high-wire routine is more low-wire, understandable when one sees troupers topple as they hurtle around.

Some of the team worked on Cantina, a similar show in the South Bank’s Spiegeltent in 2012. The cavernous Roundhouse is too large for such a sparse piece but while the performances are small this has huge heart.