Dance, physical theatre & circus review: All Genius All Idiot

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: It's not just a clever title, there really is both genius and idiocy at play in this anarchic, loveable but slightly frustrating circus show.

Assembly Roxy (Venue 339)

***

Ben Moon Smith has a shopping trolley filled with mixing desks, microphones and instruments, and boy does he know how to use them, and Santiago Ruiz scales the Chinese pole as if he first clung on seconds after leaving the womb and has done nothing else since. Tom Brand wraps himself in the vertical rope, climbing and falling with dramatic finesse while John Simon Wiborn is one of the bendiest, bounciest acrobats you’ll ever meet.

Together they make Svalbard Company, an international troupe talented to the core with an attitude to circus that lies firmly outside of the box. Which is all to the good – there are enough acrobatic troupes playing it straight out there. But in this 60 minute show there is roughly 30 minutes of excellent circus skills, ten minutes of banter-filled affable nonsense – and then a whole bunch of other stuff that should have been left on the rehearsal room floor.

Chances are you’ll forgive them for the fillers, though, when the rest of the material is so sharply executed and wonderfully chaotic.

Until 27 August. Today 7.30pm.