Arthurian legend proves a fitting theme for this charming new show from Giffords Circus, a troupe that’s built on romance and somehow manages to be both thoroughly international and English to its core.
Writer and director Cal McCrystal, the go-to guy for physical comedy, uses the yearning of clown Cuthbert (charismatic Tyler West) for a place at the Round Table as a framing device for a series of lovingly presented big top skills.
So King Arthur (American Nick Hodge) performs a rope act and turns himself into a human gyroscope, spinning around in big metal hoop called a Cyr wheel.
Lancelot and Morgan le Fay (Italian siblings Dylan and Asia Medini) execute a daredevil rollerskating routine plus solo balancing and hula hoop acts. Guinevere (Brit Nell O’Hara) belts out nerd-triggering pop hits from the 60s to the 2000s in front of a six-piece band.
Okay, the chivalric theme gets a bit lost somewhere between the dog act and gravity-defying Ukrainian acrobats The Godfathers. The latter group and the Medinis are the standout turns, along with aerialists Morgan Barbour and Victoria Sejr, who carve elegant shapes while dangling on high, sometimes literally hanging on by the skin of their teeth. It’s the sheer dedication to perfecting pointless skills that I love about circus.
To be honest not everyone on the bill operates on the level of excellence we’ve come to expect from mega-troupes like Cirque du Soleil. But Giffords exudes far more warmth, heart and family feeling, from the pre-show music in the mobile bar to the ending when the performers invite the audience to dance with them on stage.
Tyler West, who is 4’3”, has a great rapport with the crowd, and enlists children to pull Excalibur from a stone after adults have failed, proving “it’s not about size, it’s about belief”. On opening night in Chiswick, he chose sisters called Isadora and Ariadne. That’s west London for you.
West also forms neat double-acts with fellow clown Dany Rivelino and magician/escapologist Maximiliano Stia, including an eye-watering pastiche of the Medinis' skating antics.
Bittersweet lore is part of the Giffords story. Nell Stroud ran away from a sprawling, boho-artsy family to join a series of circuses before forming her own in 2000 with husband Toti Gifford and writing several books about it.
Her sensibility, embracing village greens, horses and carnivalesque generosity, survives in Giffords despite her death from breast cancer in 2019 at just 46.
But that’s morbid talk, and the great thing about circus in general and this one in particular is that it’s death defying. Not because it involves ravening animals (the largest beast here is a Shetland Pony) or because there’s no safety net for the perilous acts.
Above all, Giffords celebrates the joy of being alive in a human body, capable of wonderful things.
