Inside Out
By Cirkus Cirkor
Featuring Irya’s Playground
The Lowry, 31 August 2010
A remarkable feat of storytelling.
It uses circus acts – acrobats, jugglers, funambulists and the like – to tell the tale of a life, a young woman’s spiritual odyssey. There is also music, courtesy of a live band, Irya’s Playground.
The splendid thing about the show is that it never becomes simply a series of stupendous turns; there is always an overarching narrative. For each act manages to move the story forward, by either a modest notch or a sizeable jolt. And the songs pack a hefty emotional punch, unlike some of the ersatz music that’s often associated with stage shows. In fact, Irya’s Playground is a band that could easily command the stage on their own. No doubt about it, the songs stand up tall and true.
If you bring a child along, you’ll need to shield him or her from a couple of scary moments (e.g. one act ‘dies’ and becomes lifeless, a corpse), but no more than that.
An exhilarating, though curious, cultural creation from the nation that brought you The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
