Edinburgh Fringe 2022
Rebel
Highwire Entertainment
Genre: Cabaret, Circus, Live Music, Physical Theatre
Venue: Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows - The Beauty
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
From Sufragette City all the way to Rebel, Rebel via Ziggy, Changes, Under Pressure and so much more, a live band plays us through a variety of circus skills. Including balance, silks, trapeze and hoops – we have a raucous show filled with rock, high camp and impressive skills.
Review
Glam Rock circus with Bowie – what is not to love!?
This is a romp, an absolutely delightful and delicious romp. You get the sounds of Bowie played to an impressive level, accompanied by some physical circus oohs and aahs as the crowd love the interpretations of the classic tracks.
All but two of the songs get a circus treatment and they have a full outing with some really excellent silk work, a finale balanced finely on chairs and a table and in between some of the tricks and trade set pieces of the circus. It makes for quite a package at a high velocity rate compared by an impressive MC who is glam, and sufficiently camp to drive us from distractions.
There are a couple of missteps, some clubs on the floor, hoops that won’t quite behave and the bottle that will not take the heels first time round, but this group know how to sell it all. It’s Bowie and that is a brilliant place on which to start – but it needs to reach higher than a high camp tribute band.
That the live music is on point helps tremendously but where there are no circus skills in show for some of the songs, it is forgivable if there is length. It would therefore be better to have more than a touch of trapeze, or more than lit up roller blades, or a slightly more original getting stuck in a chair routine, but this is delivered with panache.
Highwire Entertainment have been travelling and touring in their native Australia and their polish is obvious, I just wanted to see more from a team of great performers. Given that the band are also the circus performers I am happy to plead guilty to an accusation of just being greedy but when something is good and you feel like you only get a peak, I think it’s understandable to want even more!
