As it was Owen's burpday we went to see Cirque De Soleil's ALEGRIA at the Royal Albert Hall. In their ten years of visiting London I can't say I had ever felt the urge to see them before, imagining it would be all mime and whimsy. I had a whale of a time! It's always nice to see a show that takes you by surprise. It was colourful, vibrant, imaginative and genuinely thrilling to watch.

My favourite acts were the female trapeze artist who despite the wire she had on still made me jumpy watching her swinging and spinning above our heads (maybe because I am so used to just looking across at the Albert Hall stage the use of all that space in the vault above was such a dizzying experience), the wincingly powerful handbalancing of Ukranian Denis Tolstov, the Russian Maria Silaeva who did some serious leaping and wibbling with the ol' stick and ribbon and metal hoops, Ken Futamura dizzying spins above the stage balancing a large metal cube and all the running, bouncing and pirouetting artists on the Power Track (2 intersecting bouncy runways), the gymnasts on the bendy Russian bars supported on the shoulders of others and finally the seven gravity-defying acrobats on the aerial high bar somersaulting off the metal rig high above the stage to be caught by the trapeze catchers beneath them. The only act that lost my attention were two Mongolian female contortionists which was a little too 'Freaks' for my liking.

I even enjoyed the clowns which is unheard of for me, the tall Brazilian one (who rode a farting hobby-horse at one point) and the chubby Spaniard he partnered had great fun with a paper airplane buzzed into the audience until one appeared with a massive one that nearly filed the stage and to close the first act was a puzzling though strangely poetic vignette featuring a Russian clown with John Lydon hair, a hung-up coat doubling as a lover, a railway track and snow... tons of snow! How this ends is an amazing coup-de-theatre (even if it's nicked from Slavka I think). The only downsides to the evening were the woeful bar arrangements at the RAH and the usual travel hell that invariably takes place when we go to that mausoleum. This time the Circle and Dictrict lines out of Kensington High Street were all up the muff.

Well done that Owen for having a birthday and wanting to see this show!