If you took Eurovision, made it grow a beard, don a Hawaiian shirt, add a sprinkle of Monty Python and make it circus, you’d have Super Sunday. Race Horse Company hail from Finland and have been touring their daredevil show for the past few years to delighted audiences. Judging from this audience’s standing ovation, their Fringe pitstop will be no exception.
A thudding high-energy techno soundtrack accompanied by a collection of technicoloured men on horses signals the start of the show. So far, so safe. Then one of the performers produces an outsize mallet and swings it around his head. This won’t be the last time you question whether the show has benefitted from any sort of risk assessment.
Self-consciously rough and ready, this is circus that looks held together with sticky tape and hope. Yet, we have trampolines, teeterboards, an impromptu tightrope, aerial trickery, a human catapult and a wheel of death, heaved and hoisted into place while we’re distracted by jaunty juggling, airborne acrobatics and a healthy dose of lads on tour clowning.
It comes with a brash, boisterous soundtrack and some fluid and funky break dancing. The crucifixion act is a relic that shouldn’t be resurrected but others in the audience seem to have less Catholic tastes. But there are beautiful moments buried in here. The balls on the trampoline that make a multi-coloured waterfall. The elegant somersaults that seem to stop time. And the bear wins my heart.
For those on a schedule, this performance started fifteen minutes late while they tried to seat everyone. Then ran for at least ten minutes over than the billed hour. But they may yet get things back on track.
See Super Sunday in a pack after a few drinks for thrills, spills and the kind of humour that smacks you round the face with a fish. If you’re after lyrical grace, beauty and the wonder of the human form, try This Time, the captivating Blizzard or Backbone. Though maybe then you’d miss the (intensely disturbing) mankini.