BWW Reviews: CIRQUE DE GLACE - EVOLUTION, New Wimbledon Theatre, November 16 2010

The theatrical concept of Cirque combines elements of dance, acting, storytelling and magic alongside its founding disciplines of circus. Over the last twenty years, it has moved out of its counter-cultural roots and firmly into the mainstream with Cirque de Soleil alone producing more than half a dozen shows on the Las Vegas Strip, many in multi-million dollar purpose-built theatres. Cirque de Glace bring a little of the Vegas cirque to Wimbledon with its Evolution show humbly seeking to chart the entire history of The Universe - on ice.

With regular interventions from a disembodied voice explaining matters geological, anthropological and technological in a style reminiscent of The Jacksons' "Can you feel it?" video and in couplets unfortunately reminiscent of William McGonagall, an energetic troupe of ice-skaters largely drawn from the ex-Soviet Union states don a variety of costumes to interpret the Big Bang, the Age of Dinosaurs, the Moon landing and on to ecological disaster and redemption. There are plenty of triple salchows, toe-loops and spins the audience will recognise from The Olympics and reality TV to leaven the rather serious message about man's place in all this. Amidst the spectacular acrobatics and aerobatics and even a little humour, the scale of the narrative arc often defeats performers who are clearly gifted skaters, but, perhaps, not as gifted as actors. Much the best sequence was the least ambitious - an interpretation of the commute into The City (albeit Hong Kong on the back-projection, rather than London) with the cast forsaking lycra for Apprentice style sharp suits and leaving aside the tumbling and jumping for a bit of tube train bar-hanging and crowded platform shoving and pushing.

Having said that, the big cirque shows in Vegas use enormous stages that offer vast spaces above the performers and a huge area below for various props emerge for use in the more ambitious scenes. The sound systems, certainly at The Mirage for the Beatles Love Show and at The Aria for Viva Elvis, generate the best music reproduction I have ever heard and, of course, use classic songs to drive the shows forward. Cirque de Glace make the most of the New Wimbledon Theatre's stage and the proximity of the audience reveals just how hard the performers work in an exhausting two hour show.

If you go along expecting Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" on ice, you'll be disappointed: if you go along for spectacle, thrilling jumps, lifts and spins and all-out commitment from the best ice-skaters you're likely to see in this country outside the unlikely event of our hosting the Winter Olympics, you'll enjoy a show that over-reaches itself in conception, but delivers on the entertainment.

Cirque de Glace's Evolution is at the New Wimbledon Theatre until 20 November 2010 and on tour.