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A show that outshines the Cirque du Soleil
LOFT
Roundhouse
WITH trademark circus grunts, a man in his underpants flies across the stage. Propelling himself off a giant TV set and vaulting effortlessly on top of the fridge – as if his previous vantage point wasn’t perilous enough – the nappy-wearer may seem childish but he is utterly determined.
As Patrick Léonard clowns around the six other “fingers” that make up the troupe of former Cirque du Soleil performers known as the
7 Fingers loll about in the bath and on sofas.
Whereas Soleil is blockbuster, untouchable and visually arresting,
7 Fingers is grounded, accessible and deeply vulnerable.
Through Faon Shane’s aerial chain acrobatics, with Emilie Bonnavaud on fabric and dance, and song and music provided by beatboxing DJ Pocket, Loft expresses the tragedy of striving to overcome the human body’s limitations.
The seven flatmates entertain each other in their underwear, furniture becoming tools for amusement in their hands, as Tom Waits growls sagely in the background.
Shana Carrol’s melancholic grace on the trapeze may cause you to forget to breathe.
Samuel Tetreault’s carved physique traces in the boundaries of the space around him while balancing on the finest of poles.
The chaos of their tangled intimacies is played out in synchronised, abandoned leaps and hand-to-hand acrobatics, trance and breakbeat blaring from the speakers.
It would be enough to simply express their physical skill but the
7 Fingers struggle to express every part of their character, sadness, humour and spirit in this 90-minute acrobatic spectacular.
Wearing giant lit-up lampshades Léonard and “Big Boy” Sébastien Soldevilla mockingly jockey for position. Attempts at sentimentality are spiked with sarcasm from the rest of the troupe. In reality, each performer is given a moment to shine.
Spine-chilling, hair-raising, awe-inspiring: this is everything you want to see, hear and feel. And to top it off, all are welcome to try knife manipulator and narrator Gypsy Snider’s apple pie at the end.
Until December 30
020 7424 6774 |
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