DUCK POND
Royal Festival Hall
★★★★
“It is a wonder, without a doubt, and delightfully potty”
Australian company Circa has intertwined the myths of Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling to create a muscular and gasp-inducing circus ballet that is rich in both beauty and spectacle.
“D-u-c-k!” one is tempted to shout, seeing the toned performers flung perilously across the expansive stage of the Royal Festival Hall. This is where art, performance and extreme physicality come together to push back the boundaries of what’s possible in the bruising realm of acrobatic storytelling.
As the performers swing from billowing wraps, make towers that almost touch the lighting rigs, tumble from ridiculous heights, and twist bodies until surely they must break, there are sharp intakes of breath across the auditorium – along with sympathetic twinges in dozing deltoids. Meanwhile, somewhere in a corner of the Southbank Centre, a health and safety manager is having a quiet meltdown.
These are daffy ducks. They are dexterous ducks, dazzling ducks and, above all, daring ducks.
Here’s the story in outline, taking the ornithological inexactitude of the original and giving it a tweak and twist.
At a palace celebration for the Prince’s birthday, the revelry ends abruptly. The Prince meets the Ugly Duckling, and with Cupid’s intervention, they fall in love. However, their romance is overshadowed by societal barriers. Instead, the more suitable and wily Black Swan captivates the Prince’s heart.
But fortunes change when the Ugly Duckling discovers she is, in fact, a swan herself. And here comes the modern twist – it is the Black Swan and White Swan, two sapphic swans a-swooning, who fall in love, leaving the Prince in a flap.
It’s best to know the rudiments of the story going in. This wordless show is about the sheer artistry and physicality of the human form (those mince pies seeming twice as inhibiting now). But the whispers around the auditorium suggest the youngsters like to know roughly what’s going on and who’s who.
And then, after the climactic nuptials comes the coda, the extended – and probably unnecessary – third act. The swansong, if you will. Once the story is wrapped up, we’re given a meta-view of the performers, stripping off and breaking down the set. In Fame School bursts of exuberance, everyone has a last chance to do a party piece. It gets a little raunchy here, but tongue-in-cheek.
Director Yaron Lifschitz has it right when he calls this superior mix “something new – neither quite ballet nor circus… moving yet accessible”.
It is a wonder, without a doubt, and delightfully potty.
This Christmas, make a change and put duck on the menu.
DUCK POND
Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed on 19th December 2024
by Giles Broadbent
Photography by Pia Johnson
Previously reviewed at Southbank venues:
MARGARET LENG TAN: DRAGON LADIES DON’T WEEP | ★★★★ | May 2024
MASTERCLASS | ★★★★ | May 2024
FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE | ★★★½ | April 2024
REUBEN KAYE: THE BUTCH IS BACK | ★★★★ | December 2023
THE PARADIS FILES | ★★★★ | April 2022
DUCK POND
DUCK POND
DUCK POND
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