When January rolls around, it is always a pleasure to dig out the gladrags and head to the Royal Albert Hall for Cirque du Soleil, a fixture that has become one of my favourite New Year traditions. There is something wonderfully reassuring about starting the year beneath that vast Victorian dome, knowing that for a couple of hours you will be asked to suspend disbelief, forget gravity, and wonder at your own life choices. Who wouldn’t want to run away with the circus?
This year, I brought along a friend who was a Cirque du Soleil virgin, although he was a professional bubble blower. Before the lights even dimmed, I impressed him with one of the Hall’s more eccentric historical footnotes: that it hosted the world’s first bodybuilding competition in 1901, where biceps wrapped in leopard-skin loincloths were judged by Arthur Conan Doyle himself! It turned out to be an unexpectedly apt piece of trivia, given that OVO showcases an astonishing display of muscular control, flexibility and strength in almost every direction you look.
What is OVO by Cirque du Soleil all about?
Titled OVO (Portuguese for egg), the connection between name and narrative is admittedly loose, adding to the show’s surreal, dreamlike quality. We are dropped straight into a bustling tropical ecosystem where a riot of colourful insects busily display their skills, before the rhythm is disrupted by the arrival of a curious outsider carrying a mysterious giant egg.
This is the Voyager Fly, played with endearing awkwardness by Robin Beer. Dressed in blue, he quickly develops a crush on the show’s leading lady, the Ladybug, brought to life by the irresistible Neiva Nascimento, who oozes charisma and has the entire audience in the palm of her hand. Low-key flirting ensues, though his bashfulness means he never quite finds the courage to make a move.
Complicating matters is the third humanised character, Master Flipo, who also has his sights set on the Ladybug. This triangular tension forms the backbone of the show’s light narrative. It provides a recurring comic device, handy when the performers need a change of gear or the audience needs a moment to breathe between acts. The story may be thin, but it does its job, stitching together the spectacle without ever getting in the way of it.
Choreographed by Deborah Colker, the movement language is playful and character-driven. The show begins modestly, with simpler sequences such as juggling kiwi fruits, before steadily building confidence and complexity. As is so often the case with Cirque du Soleil, the true jaw-droppers come in the form of the contortionists, who feel almost otherworldly in their physicality, and the second act is truly mesmerising.
Nyamgerel Gankhuyag’s White Spider left my friend utterly hypnotised. In a slow, controlled sequence, she appears to fold herself in half and then in half again, gripping a pole in her mouth while contorting her body with such concentration and power – with the body of a child! Cooper Yarosloski is equally astonishing, balancing one-handed atop a climbing frame shaped like twisting plant tendrils, his spine and limbs bending into impossible angles without so much as a tremor.
Elsewhere, Qui Jiangming’s slackwire act stands out as a masterclass in balance and poise. Performed within a semi-circular rocking frame, his control feels almost superhuman. The aerial cradle that closes Act I is among the most nerve-racking moments of the evening. Performed some 45 feet above the stage, the act sees performers thrown and caught mid-air like ragdolls, each near-miss provoking sharp gasps from the audience.
Not every moment is quite so dazzling. There are filler sequences – including a quirky caterpillar dance routine that is exactly as silly as it sounds, and a luminous diabolo performance that feels slightly over-egged, particularly after the high stakes of the aerial work. But these lighter moments perhaps exist to remind us that OVO is as much about playfulness as it is about peril.
However, the variety is the spice, and bright colours, dynamic lighting and constant motion create a carnivalesque mood, enhanced by the live musicians and singers whose Brazilian-inflected score adds to the joy.
The costumes, handmade by Liz Vandal, are a triumph. Each design captures the kaleidoscopic colours of nature with remarkable imagination, using reflective fabrics to convincingly mimic insect bodies and wings. From iridescent dragonflies to cocooned butterflies, the visual world of OVO is as carefully crafted as its physical feats.
Seeing this spectacle inside the Royal Albert Hall, a space as tall as ten double-decker buses stacked one on top of the other, only heightens the impact. The scale of the venue allows the acrobatics to breathe, making the feats feel even more audacious and the risks more real.
OVO is a show for children and adults alike: accessible, visually rich, and consistently impressive. You may not leave pondering the mysteries of the egg, but you will leave inspired by what the human body can achieve, and grateful that, once again, Cirque du Soleil has made the Royal Albert Hall feel like the most magical place to spend a winter evening.
OVO plays at the Royal Albert Hall until Sunday 1 March, before touring Europe.
