Royal Albert Hall (studio)
16 January 2026 (released)
16 January 2026
Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo is an insect-inspired fantasia delivering the range and polish of acrobatics that should never be taken for granted. It finds a perfect home in the Royal Albert Hall, its circular embrace neatly echoeing the show’s vision of a self-contained ecosystem, alive with colour, rhythm and constant motion.
Ovo is rooted in the miniature world of creeping, flying life, yet its concerns are unmistakably human. Around the discovery of a mysterious egg, rivalries flare, romances spark and communities reconfigure themselves. The costumes evoke creatures, wings and antennae while allowing faces and bodies to remain expressive, every muscle visible through the colourful skins of fabric.
The shows great strength lies in its ensemble dynamism made possible by the sheer skill of each individual. Comedy is threaded throughout, from clownish interruptions to knowing physical gags, but it never undercuts the seriousness of the athletic achievement on display.
The end of the first act delivers one of Ovo’s most breathtaking highlights: the aerial cradle. Suspended high above the stage, performers hurl themselves into space with terrifying commitment, relying entirely on timing, trust and the strength of their partners’ arms. The throws are genuinely pulse-quickening, their height and velocity heightened by the Royal Albert Hall’s vertiginous scale. It is spectacle that grips the breath before releasing it in collective relief.
Later, the mood shifts from peril to exuberance with the trampowall and tumbling sequence performed by the crickets. Here, the castle walls become a vertical playground as bodies ricochet, flip and rebound in a celebration of pure kinetic joy. The precision is astonishing, but so too is the sense of abandon, as if gravity itself has briefly agreed to loosen its rules.
Musically driven by a vibrant, Brazilian-inflected score, Ovo pulses with warmth and momentum. It may not aim for the darker, more abstract territories of some Cirque du Soleil outings, but what it offers instead is generosity. In this setting, beneath that iconic dome, Ovo feels less like a spectacle imposed upon an audience and more like a shared, jubilant inhabitation of a world where wonder skitters, leaps and flies.
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Photo credit: Anne Marie Forker
