Ovo Review

I very rarely tred outside of Theme Park news and reviews on this blog, but there is one type of event that will make me break this rule time and time again. That is when a touring show of Cirque Du Soleil comes to town. The quality of theming, showmanship and thrills in any given Cirque show have few peers, even in the rich world of Theme Parks. This is probably why I enjoy them so much.

Last night I was able to catch one of the first Australian perfomances of Ovo, one of the more recent shows in Cirque catalogue. As always the show exceeded my expectations in many ways, and left me with a fantastic feeling of euphoria.

To be honest the story of Ovo is not one of Cirque's richest. A group of insects find a big egg and as a result they do a bunch of circus tricks. What Ovo lacks in richness of story, it more than makes up for in theming. The world of insects is richly and vividly portrade in a way that may even surpass the previous touring Cirque shows. The costuming, lighting and staging was extremely well done.

A number of the acts fit the theme very elegantly. On the whole most acts were very enjoyable. Certainly the first half of the show was one of the best that I have seen since Cirque first toured here in 1999. My particular favourites were the foot-juggling Ants, diablo wielding Firefly and wonderful dancing Creatura. The first half ended with a wonderful flying trapeze act of Scarabs. The second half was not as exciting for me, but still had some wonderful moments. The Slackwire spider was truely extraordinary, and the Acrosport Fleas were great fun. The finale of climbing wall and trampoline tricks was a little bit underwhelming for me. While impressive there was so much going on, and a lot of it had been seen in previous Cirque shows. In the Cirque tradition, it was over far too quickly, and when the final "Banquete" started, I was expecting it to be one last full act.

Overall Ovo's acts and theming were as good or better than any Cirque Du Soleil touring show I have seen. It was a wonderful show, and I highly recommend it (if you can afford to go).