Last night I got to explore the new kid on the block at Fringe aptly named The Showman’s Fair. It is located in the Urban Orchard at the Perth Cultural Centre and inside is a wild mini Dutch festival with everything from food, drinks to music and shows.
Circus ThunderDog is part of the Dutch festival and is performed at The Opticum which is the most interesting venue I’ve been to during Fringe. It’s a wooden theatre of sorts that you climb up the stairs before going down to take your seats.
These performers say that they are authentic circus people who live the old circus lifestyle residing in caravans, owning and building the performance tent and travelling the world.
Live music starts the show and there are various acrobatic tricks performed. I liked the teeterboard (seesaw) where two men are thrown up in the air and perform a variety of flips while they strip to their underwear.
The only woman in the show who has hair so long that when she is upside down I felt it was going to get in the way of her performance did some clever rope tricks. I think I was more intrigued by her hair…
There were quite a lot of weird things happenings in the show, the host lights and smokes a cigarette with his feet which is probably not very politically correct for these times and the lone woman is picked up by her hair which I imagine gives her an instant face lift each night.
To be honest I thought Circus ThunderDog was a little disappointing, the show is only about 20 minutes long and although I like the concept that they’re trying to keep the traditional gypsy travelling circus alive with all that Fringe has on offer this was the least enthralling show I have seen.
