Around Town

The Royal Albert Hall is once again to become a sumptuous stand-in for the big top. For the uninitiated,  Cirque du Soleil is the Rolls-Royce of circus troupes and, apart from a short-lived stint in an upmarket tent in the grounds of Battersea Power Station a few years back, its productions  are normally performed  in the salubrious surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall.

The Quebec-based Cirque had been growing for more than two decades and it’s now a vast enterprise (in 2007 15 shows involving more than 1,000 artists  were being presented simultaneously around the world). So it’s not surprising that  the acts are reliably slick, the costumes and set are spectacular and the lighting and sound entirely different from anything a draughty tent in your local park could offer.Ticket  prices, too, are in a different league.

First-timers are usually knocked out  by the scale and quality of a  Cirque du Soleil production. Return visitors are sometimes more critical, at least in part because you can’t repeat the thrilling surprise of that first, memorable experience. But some of  the shows suggest a narrative that is irritatingly obscure and detracts needlessly from the acts. This year’s show – Varekai  – hasn’t been seen in the UK before. The word means ‘wherever’ in the Romany language of the gypsies and, says the show’s publicity, it promises to take viewers ‘wherever they dream’.