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

We’re now on BLUESKY – click to visit and follow

★★★★

“filled to the brim with truth, emotion and wit”

Good ideas stick, great plays take time, and Tom Ratcliffe’s ‘Circa’, first seen in London two and a half years ago, has benefitted from having a long gestation period. Ratcliffe, together with director Andy Twyman, has constructed a nuanced, honest and touching story of one man’s journey through life, love, relationships, and sex.

From an insecure young man moving to London to broaden his artistic and sexual horizons, through the trails and tedium of middle-age and the quest for monogamy and a family, to an older man coming to grips with how technology has terribly altered his search for companionship, ‘Circa’ charts one man’s life through his relationships. Simultaneously intimate and epic, we are introduced to recurring characters, one-night-stands, rent boys and first loves, all linking together to show how past experiences inevitably press on present concerns.

To reveal more would spoil the journey. Ratcliffe has developed a wonderfully entertaining play that leaves on a poignant note. In the context of gay life, where is community to be found? Loneliness emerges as a key theme, and methods of finding love and sex remain illicit and clandestine in a play that places gay men’s lives in the context of a straight man’s world.

Three actors play our lead character in the three iterations of his life, and all five members of the ensemble play multiple roles throughout (with the exception of Jenna Fincken, sadly underused representing the protagonist’s only attempt at heterosexuality). The whole cast is on top form throughout, but more work is needed to physically differentiate one character from the next. Twyman’s direction keeps the story precise and clear, with Ted White’s sound and Luke W. Robson’s lighting working beautifully to express the passing of time and closing of scenes. Robson’s set, resembling the sort of thing you’d see in a contemporary art gallery, is a cool blank canvas for any situation to be projected onto.

Whilst last year’s ‘The Inheritance’ dealt with the legacy of gay history, ‘Circa’ addresses the legacy of one person’s past relationships. As a synecdoche for many gay men’s stories, Ratcliffe has it spot on. This play is filled to the brim with truth, emotion and wit. As entertaining as it is moving, ‘Circa’ is unmissable theatre for anyone interested in queer stories, and, indeed, anyone interested in love.

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

DUCK POND

Royal Festival Hall

★★★★

“It is a wonder, without a doubt, and delightfully potty”

DUCK POND

Royal Festival Hall

Reviewed on 19th December 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Pia Johnson

Previously reviewed at Southbank venues:

DUCK POND

DUCK POND

DUCK POND

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 7th March 2019

★★★★

“filled to the brim with truth, emotion and wit”

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

Circa

Old Red Lion Theatre until 30th March

Previously reviewed at this venue: