Tumble Circus @ Underbelly

This is my first ever circus show. Well, since I was a small child. An outing captured in a photo of a chubby younger self perched atop an elephant. Tumble Circus tells the story of Tina and Ken, an acrobatic couple stuck with one another for seventeen years, both personally and professionally.

The story here is of boredom, incompatibility and comedy. Our couple tumble (as per advertised), twist, balance, jump and more often that you'd expect, slap one another. The moves are nice but the music and lights don't always fit and there is more than one lacklustre flourish that leaves me unsatisfied. The skill of the performers is not to be questioned, rather the packaging of the show which felt incomplete.

The premise here works; our couple are at odds personally but very much together professionally. The razzle dazzle of the carnival is shunned for a more personal - and human - piece of theatre. The spoken portions are amusing and antagonistic but they fail to tell a convincing story and dissolve fluidly into the energetic acrobatic routines.

Their final act on a circus swing high in the rafters is engaging, fun, humorous and interesting but I can't help notice a lack of energy and excitement in the performance as a whole. You think circus, you think energetic pageantry, excitement and style but Tumble Circus doesn't quite deliver.