Freefall
Gravity & Other Myths @ Arcade Lane – Regent One
6:30pm, Sun 13 Mar 2011
Of all the shows I saw in 2010, Freefall was one of the most memorable; I can still recall every emotion I felt in The Arch that day. And, being absolutely truthful here, one of my secret joys this year was discovering that a quote from my post had been lifted for Freefall‘s 2011 Fringe précis. It was only halfway through the Fringe that I noticed that another quote was splashed across all their flyers and posters. That made me indescribably warm and fuzzy inside :)
But here I now was, in Arcade Lane, at a hastily-arranged extra show: with the Fringe Awards later that night, I knew that this would be my last show of the year. Show one-hundred-and-thirty-one. And I couldn’t imagine anyone better to spend the time with.
Arcade Lane was positively packed with people; young kids with parents, tweens and teens and dinks alike, the place was jumping – such a change from the small audience when I saw them last year! Despite arriving relatively late, it was easy for all one of me to nab a front-row seat… and as I looked out onto the performance area of Regent One, padded down with thick corrugated cardboard, I started wondering how the experience of last year’s confined spaces of The Arch would compare.
If anything, this performance was better than that already incredible effort.
Despite being largely the same performance – the same routines, the same spoken-word bits, the same cheesey-but-not telephone gag – the (comparatively) wide open spaces allowed the Gravity & Other Myths team to be bigger; bolder. The tumbling acts were incredibly dynamic, and a few detached and slippery bits of cardboard weren’t going to hold these kids back. The arc of the light-bulb drew massive yellow streaks in my eyes as it flew around the old cinema; the three-high balance, which had felt so impossibly tall in The Arch, still had a sense of I-can’t-believe-what-they’re-doing about it.
In short: once again, I watched the last half of this performance through eyes that wept with joy. I could blame it on last-show relief, but the truth is that Freefall is still the most engaging, exciting, and – yes – bloody amazing circus performance around.