Royal Albert Hall

Legendary Canadian circus company Cirque Du Soleil knows how to put on a spectacle. And its thirty-fifth show – making its European premiere at their traditional London stomping ground of the Royal Albert Hall – is no different. ‘Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities’ is a lavishly designed (by Stéphane Roy) ode to the Victorian Age of Wonder. It makes full use of the height and scale of the Royal Albert Hall’s auditorium to surreally evoke the period’s heady collision of imagination and technological advances. There’s a beautifully realised steampunk edge to the various contraptions and robots on stage. It’s a vision in bronze hues of our first steps towards flight and the flickering lights of early cinema. However, fully grasping the underlying narrative definitely needs a flick through the show’s programme. The Seeker – a scientist-like character who looks like he’s stepped out of a Pee-wee Herman film – wants to unlock the secrets of his cabinet of curiosities. After essentially giving himself an electric shock, the inhabitants of ‘Curiosistan’ appear on a locomotive and do their weird and wonderful thing. It’s a novel approach by Michel Laprise, who has progressed from Cirque Du Soleil performer to this show’s writer and director. It’s something of a shame, then, that it takes a little while for the wow-factor to really kick in. There are some inventive performances at the start, like Anne Weissbecker’s aerial acrobatics on a bicycle and comic Facundo Giminez’s ‘invisible’ cir