Edinburgh Fringe 2010

Cue agreeably beatific mistress of ceremonies to introduce a mixture of slap stick, innuendo, melodrama and trick tease that dispels the myth that Big Top activities are just about hand stands and tightly fitting lycra. 

 

Circus Trick Tease’s flamboyant Miss Tinkle is an incurable flirt but appears to be having great difficulty in attracting the attentions from the pair of muscled machismo in the troupe. So the last thing she needs is a sensitive, new age strong man who first takes a shine to four palpitating ladies in the audience only to then switch his affections to the charming new clown the troupe has acquired.

 

Malia Walsh and Shannon McGurgan hail from a land down under and, with Iranian Farhad Ahadi, go through a routine that is as balletic as it is dramatic with heavy lifts and jaw dropping balances including head on head stands, human sculptures, a jive routine that I doubt you will see emulated on any dance floor near you and the most innovative way of realigning the lights I have seen at the Fringe. Who needs a ladder when you can simply get three people to stand on top of each other? 

 

There’s a smattering of some rather risqué shadow-screening involving what appears to be a cardboard goat and a blow-up doll and there is the odd bit of raunchiness to keep the attention of the young females in the audience, so, yes, it’s a bit naughty in parts. But it’s far from offensive, although kids with parents that are at an awkward age are best to park them in the cafe downstairs with a mug of hot chocolate whilst they enjoy the fun and frolics.

 

These characters (or should that be caricatures) could carry the show on their own, exhibiting as they do showmanship in the finest traditions of burlesque comedy. The sheer number and variety of lifts and twists can’t fail to leave you with a sense of awe whilst the comic antics (which you suspect took a lot more rehearsal than the straight acrobatics) means that a smile is never far from your face.

 

But all good things must come to an end and so, as our two strong men dash off, arm in arm, after a tremendous finale, the audience is left to sympathise with the broken, desolate Miss Tinkle as she mourns the loss to her circus.  Melodramatic to the bitter end.