Cirque – the Greatest Show. The Curve, 60 Rutland Street, Leicester LE1 To 02 June 2024 prior to a national tour.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Circus acts and musical theatre irresistibly combined.”

A spectacular for all the family, this blend of musical acts and circus is a blaze of sequins and light, comedy, laughter and song and more or less bludgeons the audience into submission. You are going to enjoy yourself come what may, so sit back, whatever your age, and do just that as the cast work tirelessly to keep what the show has promised – a great night, or matinee, out. The Curve is a splendid venue as it has the sort of auditorium and stage designed for this kind of musical revue in which ladies are suspended from chandeliers, a juggler, Thomas Barrandon, juggles more tennis balls than you could think possible, a man, Thomas Barrandon again, and woman take turns firing darts from a cross bow at objects the one not doing the firing is holding – they include balloons, a sheet of paper and a rose – a fire eater, Adam Boom, does amazing things with flaming torches, and the mime artist Christiana Lee, who opens the show, provides the laughs, the audience participation, and concludes by riding a unicycle round the stage which is thronged with everyone else there to take their bows. Add singers led by Max Fox who can sing and a chorus line of leggy chorines and bare chested chaps in crimson costumes covered in sequins who seem never to stop swirling round as the acts come and go, and you have a great show. Why stay home and watch television when you can see a live how like this. It harks back to the days when Saturday night promised a host of professionals doing what only they could do rather than talent shows where people who may have talent attempt to persuade a panel of judges, some of whom have talent, to say they have talent. This is an irresistible combination of circus acts and song and dance.

For details of the tour to find when it comes to a theatre near you google Cirque – the greatest show.