Clowning around at Royal Festival Hall, Slava's troupe of clowns create a spectacular snow storm.
The godfather of clownery, Slava Polunin, calls his brand of eccentric pantomime “the idiotics of expression” and there is something delightfully daft about what unfolds at Royal Festival Hall as Slava's Snowshow gets underway. The classic clowning of Slava's troupe is reassuring, as are the endless laughs that follow, but there's no getting away from what a sporadically paced spectacle of a show this is.
Its haphazard pacing is like the rest of the show: seemingly shambolic but in fact craftily precise. There are bursts of narrative but not one sustained one, which is both a blessing and a flaw. Clowns ride in on boats, they exit as sharks and are shot down by arrows. Watching a clown's last lament is strangely entertaining and meeting his nonchalant killer, bizarrely funny.
Their interactions are childlike but not silly. They hold on to that funny quality that children have just before they learn to speak; when they reveal at breakneck speed all their thoughts at once in no intelligible manner and leave it up to you to figure out what they want to say. They present a series of cleverly placed contrasts, performed by a group of friends so close, they don't need to speak to be understood.
They do occasionally fall into that old trap of repeating a gag that works, but for the most part they embrace the joy of surprise and the rewards of giving an audience something to marvel at. They also know how to make the audience an integral part of their act and engulf them in a snow storm from beginning to end.
The show starts on the stage but it doesn't stay there. It spills into the crowd, propels itself up the rows and finally invites the audience to continue the performance once the clowns have tired. By the end, I'm pulling bits of spiderweb out of my scarf and finding endless amounts of confetti in my pockets, while I try to hide from the gigantic colourful balls rolling around above the audience. Far from the Cirque du Stunts we've come to expect from mainstream circus, Slava's Snowshow proves that classic clowning which plays on our imagination is capable of pulling on many more emotions.
Slava's Snowshow runs at Royal Festival Hall until 8th January
Image by V. Vial
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