La Soirée – review

It can't be easy for an act to join the cult circus-cabaret floorshow La Soirée: the bar has been set pretty high. But vaulting high bars – or dangling from them, or balancing on them – is what these people are all about. I am happy to report that, as it returns for Christmas with a handful of new acts, there is no diminishing in the quality of the show that provided such a sassy, delinquent thrill on the South Bank last year. OK, so we're minus a contortionist and a sexy ropes act – but the slapstick rollerskater, the glamorous aerialists and the German giant flipping his sidekick like a playing card more than compensate.

The gasp factor, then, is as lungbustingly high as ever, whether it is gasps of astonishment – Ukrainian hoops virtuoso Yulia Pykhtina, whose each extremity has more grace, control and autonomy than my whole body – or of terror, as when compere Mario, with a nervous audience member tottering on his shoulders, ascends his unicycle and starts pedalling. Of the new crop, Hugo Desmarais and Katharine Arnold contribute a muscular feat of airborne acrobatics, albeit without the expected La Soirée charisma; and 6ft 5in Christopher Schlunk sends little Iris Pelz spinning up into the sky, and down again, then cocks his head to an inadvisable angle and balances her on it. Ouch.

The top rookie is Nate Cooper, supplying clownish anarchy in the absence of house fool Captain Frodo. In diaphanous frock and monstrous stilettoes, he lurches on to a pogo stick (adorned with buffalo horns, which is a nice touch) then bounces while juggling machetes. That, as someone once said, is entertainment – and the show's only 20 minutes old at this point. In fact, La Soirée peaks early tonight; its closing acts are its least marvellous. But by then, you are already dizzy with pleasure.