If you've been to Zippos Christmas Show (read my review here) you might have glimpsed a Globe of Death behind the curtains and wondered why it wasn't used. Well, the Globe is for Zippos' other show, Cirque Berserk, which is playing three shows each evening in the same venue. Yep, there are SIX circus performances every day at Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland.
Cirque Berserk was designed to be a high-octane theatre show (although it works perfectly well in the in-the-round setting of the big top). It has a completely different aesthetic to Zippos traditional circus style and the tent is completely redecorated between afternoon and evening - or, rather, completely stripped out to create the black box style backdrop associated with 'cirque'-style shows.
Gone are the Christmas lights that cover the king poles in the Christmas show. Gone is the ring curb, removing all barriers between audience and action. The ring doors (curtains) are pulled back, leaving the Globe of Death visible in the background at all times.
Gone, too, are the cheery Christmas songs, replaced by a percussion-driven contemporary soundtrack. Moody lighting bathes the edge-less performing area in hazy shades of blue, purple and pink.
The line-up of acts is also completely different.
What Berserk has in common with the Christmas Show is the amount of high quality circus stunts it packs into its compact, fat-free 45-minute running time, and the slickness with which it transitions between the acts, leaving not a second's pause in the action.
The acts in fact overlap, with one set of performers arriving as another leaves.
The show begins with an energetic display of overhead bar gymnastics. The routine is best viewed from the side where you can really see the guys and gal swinging around the bars.
No sooner have the gymnasts dropped to the ground and begun to collapse their apparatus, than a motorcyclist roars into view above them, with a trapeze artist performing on a cradle beneath him. The high wire artists' most crowd-wowing stunt sees biker and trapeze artist revolving around the wire, with him passing under it as she swings over it.
When the bike backs out of sight, Ludvik Novotny is already atop a platform centre stage, ready to impress with his rola-rola routine.
Another of the show's seamless transitions is achieved by a two-man balancing act (pictured above) performing in part atop a ramp and platforms that will be used by the BMX stunt bike trio that follow them.
The balancers conclude their act with a neat fall from a human pyramid to a pair of forward rolls and exit via an aisle through the audience as the BMXers ride into the ring behind them.
The highlight of the BMX routine sees a female performer lie in a star shape on the floor while a rider, standing up on one wheel, hops his bike around and over her, missing her limbs by inches.
It's a stunt reminiscent of an elephant stepping over their trainer's assistant in the world of circus past, and is one of those apparently dicing with death circus moments that really ramps up the tension in an audience.
Is the danger to the woman in this stunt really greater than that of the aerial artists performing on silks and chains elsewhere in the show? Or the daredevil motorcyclists circling inside the Globe of Death? It's hard for the audience to judge, but I would argue that it feels greater. We don't have the experience of being up on the silk while possessing the skill those artists have, and part of their job is making it look easy, rather than precarious. But we can imagine how it would feel to trust your safety to a bloke on a bike and how it would feel if his wheel and weight accidentally landed on your arm, or your stomach... or your head.
I wouldn't like to lie there, put it that way - and it's that empathic reaction that really connects the performance to the audience.
On a lighter note, the tall Whimmy Walker and the 3-foot-tall Paulo Dos Santos make a great clown duo, entering on a bouncy motorcycle and a tiny bike. Their tramp-style costumes and absence of traditional clown make-up fit perfectly with the contemporary cirque style while they mix juggling skills with traditional slapstick. Paulo is a sometime Ringling star and Whimmy's great-great-grandfather clowned for Queen Victoria, so they both know exactly what they're doing.
Elsewhere in the show is a crossbow act and a couple of aerial routines with three artists in the air at the same time, the central performer on chains or hanging from her hair, while the other two perform on silks to either side of her. The result is much stronger visually than having just one aerialist in the ring, which is often the case with such acts.
The shaven-headed Alexandr Shpilevoy displays masterful control in an elegant, dramatic and accomplished Cyr wheel act. The act ends with him backing away into the shadows while his hoop continues to spin alone in the spotlight. It's a very striking visual image.
The show concludes with the ever-lurking Globe of Death being brought forward into the centre of the ring.
As I said in my review of Planet Circus (which you can read here), the Globe is not my favourite stunt. The fact that EVERY circus seems to end with one has made it too commonplace for my liking.
The one at Berserk is well lit, however, and looks good close-up from front row. The show also adds a couple of twists. A ballerina stands in the centre of the cage and lets one of the motorcyclists snatch a feather from her hand as the bikes revolve around her. Then, when the stunt riders have left, Paulo Dos Santos enters the globe on a miniature motorbike and roars around the inside while the rest of the company come out to take a bow.
It's a nice end to a fast-flowing show that crams 90 minutes worth of acts into 45 and delivers outstanding value for money. Is it better or worse than Zippos Christmas Show in the afternoon? The two shows are as different as apples and oranges and equally outstanding. Any circus fan heading for Hyde Park this winter would miss out if they didn't see both.
Cirque Berserk has shows at 18:00, 19:30 and 21:00 each day except Christmas Day until 31 December.
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