Review: Nofit State Circus

Apr 25 2008 By David Adams, Western Mail

Tredegar Park, Newport

CAN circus be sexy? I mean in both senses.

Is it cool to hang out in an environment you last enjoyed as a kid? Do you lose street cred if you sneak off to the Big Top?

Is there something of the zeitgeist here? Is this real theatre? If it’s Nofit State Circus, the answer is emphatically “yes”.

This is adult circus, so hip it sizzles and so cool it’s hot. No wonder it’s big in London and Europe.

But it’s also sexy in the, well, erotic sense.

Somehow circus is supposed to be an ironic representation of the sexy: aerialists in glorified swimming costumes, strong men who do nothing but pump iron, acrobats in pastel lycra leotards.

But not really erotic – not least because it’s for kids.

However, Nofit State Circus’s latest show, Tabu, quite definitely has a sexiness about it, with the performers being explicitly amorous but also self-aware.

They’re attractive and they know it.

The Tabu (why not taboo? Don’t ask) is fear, rather than any sexual prohibition, but you don’t really need to know that.

What you get is an intoxicating mix of eclectic music (from funk to klezmer by way of jazz and rock), eccentric solos, pratfall clowning, trapeze work and high-wire thrills that often isn’t that different from any other circus, but here is so close you can smell the sweat.

This year’s follow-up to the hugely successful ImMortal series is in some ways less ambitious.

There’s less technology, less quirkiness and no outer circle to walk round, although the audience is still there in the thick of it.

Any attempt at a comprehensible narrative seems to have been abandoned – though I guess director-writer Firenza Guidi (pictured) has always seen her text as a starting-point rather than a plot to be followed.

And this is officially a preview prior to the show going to London and a subsequent European tour, which means we’re stepping into the process early on, so from past experience, by the time it returns it will be slicker – and maybe even sexier.

4/5