Breathtaking visual poetry and fantasy

This aerial contortion act is a highlight of Amaluna

AMALUNA

Cirque du Soleil, Trafford Centre Big Top, to October 9

THE extraordinary Canadian company of circus acts and wild fantasy returns with its "Grand Chapiteau" to the Trafford Centre for the first time in more than six years.

The statistics are staggering: The "touring" version of the 2,500 seat tent is moved around the world in 65 huge lorries, weighs more than 2,000 tons and has various individual bits of stage equipment - one a glass goblet in which a performer can comfortably swim round - that themselves weigh almost two tons.

That's on top of the stage lighting and the amazing three-way strap rig, built into the tent roof, that can take three aerial performers at a time to the ceiling (almost 50ft) or out over the audience without so much as a "look out below".

All of this would be for nothing if Cirque's shows were mundane, but anyone who has seen one will know that is very far from the case. Some criticise Cirque for its New Age mix of wordless songs and garbled stories laced with fantasy-foremost. But one thing you can't do is criticise the outstanding artistry and skill on display.

Energetic

This story mixes The Tempest with Romeo and Juliet and as before, this is merely a convenient peg on which to hang a succession of world-class circus acts and visual set-pieces. There's the aforementioned aerial strap act, an extraordinary aerial contortionist, equally amazing Chinese acrobats, a heart-stopping balancing act and the most energetic teeter-board act I've seen, in which a team of young men power themselves at least 20ft into the air, somersaulting in all kinds of combinations as they go.

Downside? This show has perhaps the weakest clown act I've seen from Cirque, and there is an uneven-bars act that never quite seems to get going.

But the music is loud and rock-orientated, the visual poetry stunning, the singing not as silly as usual and the effect of the circus tent is to draw out an atmosphere unlike any other spectacle I could easily name.