About halfway through Delirium, there are are two Chinese acrobats of such staggering skill that they almost stop the show. They don’t, of course, because Cirque du Soleil is too tightly a managed showbiz juggernaut to allow audience enthusiasm to derail its run-time, but the two acrobats very nearly do.
They are simply brilliant. Tiny and muscular, the pair barely break sweat as they spin from a single rope, faster and faster, climbing on and around each other in pretzel folds and fiendish knots that somehow lock and unravel.
The rest of the show is unexpectedly awful. Even if you’re not a fan of Cirque du Soleil’s big-scale events, you could always rely on them to put on a display of whizz-bang tumbling, juggling and acrobatics. Admittedly, there was also a storyline of tedious mysticism, Spandex costumes and Celine Dion-meets-Bonnie-Tyler music but there was also the thrill of watching great circus.
In Delirium, Cirque have inexplicably dropped most of it and gone instead for a show of "music, multimedia and gigantic visuals". The result is a muddle of only OK video projections, average singing, and muddled pageantry that’s nowhere near as good as the Notting Hill Carnival — and that’s a free event (not counting the cost to taxpayers of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea).
Delirium has no stylistic or thematic consistency. There is no humour or innocence and not much originality. There are occasional moments of good circus, such as the Chinese duo, the solo male acrobat, and the hula-hoop girl but it feels cynical and looks like a hotchpotch of things you half-think you’ve seen before.
It is also surprisingly old-fashioned, with portentous voice-overs and dance routines that Pan’s People would shun.
It didn’t used to be like this. I remember seeing Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall and being thrilled at the acrobatic daring. Cirque should leave rock shows to the rockers, and stay with what they do best. The audience clearly thought so. Many didn’t look like they’d pay to see this Cirque again.
Until 19 April. Information: www.the02.co.uk
Cirque du Soleil: Delirium
02 Arena
