London loves La Soirée. The Olivier Award-winning cabaret/circus spectacular is back for another season in its South Bank Spiegeltent and the capital couldn’t be happier.
“Come down and film some of the acts,” they said to us. “They’re astonishing.”
“Come down and take some pictures,” they said to us. “They’ll be incredible.”
The ‘they’ in question shall remain nameless, but ‘they’ know who ‘they’ are.
What no-one said to us was, “Come down and join La Soirée’s own leather-clad Freddie Mercury-alike of a master of ceremonies, Mario Queen Of The Circus, for some intimate instruction on how to hula while strapped uncomfortably close to another man.”
I can’t think why the order had not been worded in such a way.
But we at Official London Theatre rarely take a backward step from a challenge of the audience participation type. So, having watched wide-eyed and mouth agape as performers poured themselves through tennis racquets and performed frankly seemingly impossible feats of strength and balance on poles, silks and a motorbike, we stepped onto the stage with an encouraging Mario to get our hips working like never before. You can see the results in the video above.
Sadly our circus and cabaret skills are nowhere near those of the actual stars of La Soirée. If you need to wipe the image of what you may have just witnessed from your mind, we’d suggest heading down to the Spiegeltent on the South Bank before 11 January to be truly stunned by the show’s array of incomparable performers. Rest assured, I will not be appearing.