Dance, physical theatre & circus review: Attrape Moi
Star rating: ****
Venue: Assembly Hall (Venue 35)
If we think you’re not really up to the task, our enjoyment disappears. But the finale of Attrape Moi (Catch Me) takes this to a whole new level.
We’ve already spent 50 minutes enjoying the flips and tricks Quebecois company Flip Fabrique offer – all of which have been executed with strength and skill. But when they wheel out the large trampoline, everyone raises their game.
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Hide AdPerformers bounce down and back up on to the house-like structure they’ve been playing with throughout the show, turning in mid-air to land in exactly the same place. With a lighting rig just inches from their heads, each bounce requires absolute precision – yet they make it look like kids having fun on a bouncy castle, the risk of injury far from their minds.
The image of kids having fun permeates throughout, starting when the show opens and six friends arrive in the space, happy to see each other and ready to play. What follows is, in many ways, the usual circus fare – acrobatics, hoops, aerial. But often Flip Fabrique will drop in something we haven’t seen elsewhere: a clever hula hoop trick they’ve perfected, or an especially gorgeous moment of aerial work.
Which begs the question why Flip Fabrique feels the need to pepper the show with occasional moments of supposedly witty fillers.
Why waste time having an ice lolly eating competition – which, frankly, any of us could do – when you could get on with your next trick? Such as easily the best diabolo routine I’ve ever seen, which you can only guess at how many hours it took to get right. Once that trampoline comes out, however, all is forgiven.
Until 29 August. Today 6pm.