Edinburgh Fringe 2014: Circa, Beyond

Once, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was all about penniless students presenting avant-garde plays to audiences of three in church halls. These people still come, but now they compete for attention with professional production companies who, it’s to be supposed, make a decent whack of money from their three weeks in Scotland’s tourist-jammed capital.

Australian contemporary circus outfit Circa are in the latter camp, spending this year’s Fringe with a prime 7pm spot in the McEwan Hall, the largest venue used by successful Fringe promoters Underbelly. At £16.50 for an hour-long performance, tickets are steep, considering you can see a three-hour play or a five-hour opera at the Edinburgh International Festival for £12 (though that’s government arts subsidy for you).

Circa's return on your investment is a crowd-pleaser of a show, a manic romp through the possibilities of circus. It’s high on the ooh and ah factor, with contortion, trapeze work, backflips and feats of strength frequently drawing loud “bloody hell” type exclamations from the (not 100% sober) crowd. Highlights for me were the graceful aerial silk solo by one of the girls (no programme, so no names) and all the strongwoman business done by another, a broad-shouldered redhead (pictured right) who can support the weight of two grown men on her shoulders and solve a Rubik’s cube at the same time. Take that in the eye, outdated notions of feminine weakness!

The capering around in animal heads imparts a surreal, even borderline creepy daftness to the show, but allows the performers to show their dramatic skills – a guy (pictured left) seemingly infected by his costume with a weasel’s aggressive spirit acts his animalistic possession with rather scary, slavering conviction, and the sketch where all the cast emit struggle to suppress moos, baas and yelps is neat and funny. The suggestion made in the show’s opening prologue that all this somehow relates to a theme of ‘beyond’ - beyond human capacities, beyond human nature – is not explored with any kind of subtlety at all: it’s a hook to hang a (great, engaging) circus show on, not an exploration of what it means to be human or animal.

Fair enough; sometimes entertainment can just be entertainment. But since I’ve also seen Circa perform gorgeous, profound, thought-provoking work – their February show at the Barbican was one of my favourite performances this year – I was a little disappointed. The audience as a whole, I think, was perfectly satisfied with a jolly hour of really very accomplished circus.

• The Edinburgh Festival Fringe finished on 25 August.  For details of Circa's upcoming performances in Europe and Australia, see their website.