Cirque Berserk at the Lyceum Theatre Sheffield Review

Reviewed by Jenny Bray

Imagine the madness of amazing and daredevil circus acts but within the comfort and luxury of a warm theatre setting. ‘Ours is not a circus, it’s a Berserkus’… This is Cirque Berserk.

I wasn’t sure how well the acts would work in a theatre setting so was intrigued to see this show. It turns out that they work very well and the show was pretty gripping throughout.

I guess the rise of shows like Britain’s Got Talent, Cirque du Soleil etc. has enabled circus style acts to become more mainstream and accepted and Martin Burton (founder of Zippo’s circus) has really utilised this by bringing it all into a theatre setting.

This show was on at the Sheffield Lyceum theatre which is the more traditional theatre in the theatre complex in the city centre. I chose to park at the local Q park at Charles Street as there is an agreement with the theatres to offer the first hour free if you get a ticket from a member of staff. The desks are easy to spot as they are immediately in front of you as you enter the theatre building. There are bars on two levels of the theatre and also a kiosk selling sweets, soft drinks and ice creams. Ice creams are also sold by members of staff throughout the theatre during the interval.

The show is actually a series of several different acts, brought together from across the globe, each performing their own section. They have an added theatrical edge to them with the staged background music, set lighting and act changes but these are real circus acts performing real, often dangerous, highly skilled acts.

Before the opening performance there was an announcement that mobile phones were allowed to be left on, in fact encouraged to be used as part of the interactive show and that texting, tweeting and Facebook use was encouraged! There were also flashing novelty items on sale throughout. However, I found the flashing toys being moved around by the children on our row very distracting.

The Timbuktu Tumblers opened with impressive skipping, dance moves and balancing acts. They climbed each other as if they were casually walking up some stairs rather than daringly putting on a balancing act on top of each other. They then danced and balanced their way between other acts a few times during the show, including jumping through small hoops and an extraordinary fire limbo act in the second half which sees one member able to limbo under a stick at only bottle height!

The flexibility and agility of some of the performers is amazing. Jose and Gaby performed a remarkable dance, including Gaby balancing on Jose’s head with just one hand and being able to smoothly wrap herself around him for lots of fluid dance moves. Their movements were a calm interlude in the madness of the other acts, yet none the less impressive.

I enjoyed the acts in the air. Jackie, the strap acrobat, put on an extraordinary dance in the air, including a few breath-taking moments! The ribbon dancers were also good. Laci, the male aerial pole act was impressive, but didn’t look as smooth flowing as the others and I was hoping for a bit more from him while in the air.

The foot juggler, Germaine Delbosq, was a great act. While she was performing most of the other 34 performers were in the background dancing and clapping. Gabrielle and Germaine, the Bolas Argentinas, also encouraged clapping while swinging the bolas around speedily and skilfully during their section.

The Tropicana Troupe, who catapult themselves in the air with a springboard that looks like a giant seesaw were amazing, although a little scary to watch!

I felt that some of the ‘wow’ acts were over quite quickly. Odka emerged from a bottle and shot an arrow with her foot but the whole act was over rapidly. Zula’s act, where he builds a tower of chairs and climbs on it, was over in a few blinks. There were also a couple of short appearances from a robot who looked like a transformer. I’m not quite sure what it’s purpose was as it didn’t really do much when on stage.

The knife throwing, by Toni and his assistant, also seemed to be quite quick. Again, it was very impressive though, particularly when using the spinning board and also using fire!

I found the slapstick guy, Tweedy, to be the least impressive yet he appeared most frequently and for the longest periods of time. He had quite a predictable set up of disasters involving collapsing ladders, bicycles etc. although they were cleverly done and many in the audience were laughing lots. He also interacted well with the audience, to include front row members. I found his rope act at the end to be the best of his acts.

One of my favourite parts was the Lucius team performing in the Globe of Death, which for the finale is set with 4 bikes somehow squeezing in one rather small metal ball to circle around each other without crashing! It’s the first time this stunt has been performed on stage in the UK. The confines of a theatre setting meant that the audience were left breathing in exhaust fumes afterwards but this was a minor downside for seeing such an amazing act.

The stage setting is industrial, partly due to the large, metal circular frame of the globe of death constantly in the background. However, individual acts bring their own props on stage for use so everything else is minimal. There were smooth transitions between acts, sometimes with dancers and sometimes with other acts.

I’m impressed that in today’s ‘health and safety’ conscious times this kind of show is still able to take place. People were high up in the air with no safety net or harness to save them if they fell. There were so many elements of risk if something had gone wrong!! The only aspect I did see was a person holding a fire extinguisher when the Globe of Death was in use (which, quite frankly didn’t look like it would have done much had there really been a big fire disaster!)

I thoroughly enjoyed it and feel, from the diversity of the audience, that it might be achieving bringing circus style acts to a wider audience than is normally seen in traditional big top type circuses.

As an audience member I was a little confused as to when to clap on occasion. Lots of points were worthy of applause but the audience were sometimes in awe of the talent at that point or would have ended up continually clapping through some acts! I hope no acts took offence when the audience were silenced in awe rather than clapping and cheering at impressive sections!

The audience was a mixture of people including families with various ages of children, who all appeared to love it. I rate it 5/5 for something thrill packed and a little different to see in a theatre.

Rating: 5/5

Tickets cost from £9 to £29 (booking fees may apply).

Cirque Berserk is at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield from 22-25 March 2017, for more information or to book tickets visit www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk or call the box office on 0114 249 6000.

Lyceum Theatre, Norfolk St, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S1 1DA ‎| 0114 249 6000