Melbourne-based Head First Acrobats, who have already appeared at the Edinburgh and Brighton Fringe festivals, make their brief West End debut with this camply comic display of considerable circus skills. They are not just accomplished acrobats but bring the brio of burlesque to their balancing, trapeze, straps suspension and other performance skills.
With the sonorous voice of Zeus as narrator, it introduces three Olympian divinities and a demigod to act out the thinnest of storylines as muscular Hercules (Callan Harris) is put through his paces to regain the favour of his father Zeus and eventual elevation from demi- to full god. He is accompanied by Apollo the Sun God (Thomas Gorham), Dionysus the God of Wine (Jordan Twartz) and Love God Cupid (Liam Dummer).
With this mixture of Greek and Roman names, don’t expect classical clarity. Hercules may get sent down to Hades, but he is also dispatched to a Christian Hell where grotesque nuns are cavorting. Divinity is an excuse to bare flesh, as in a sequence with their statues being touched up by a deft feather duster. What begins with a slow send-up of classical grace morphs into explosions of energy and music that ranges from ear-blasting pop to "Ave Maria".
This isn’t Magic Mike—it is all delightfully silly, like that TV ad for sweets that gives grown men piping child voices, a silliness that these performers make the audience delight in, and apparent trepidation too as when Cupid balanced atop of tower of chairs wonders how the heck he is going to regain the ground.
The multi-skilled four performers make this feel like a much larger company, working together as in multi-layered acrobatics, or taking solo turns like Dionysus’ diabolo act performed as he knocks back the vino, Apollo’s head spinning (not just on the level but on a flying trapeze too). There’s cracking whip control, eye-boggllng work on an unsupported ladder and a balance atop a paired handstand I hadn’t seen before. A wide variety of well-honed skills are on show, though a couple of acts would be better a little bit briefer.
Godz labels itself with18+ guidance, and it is not for the particularly pious. It’s gigglingly erotic, not really raunchy, but there is one double entendre that could earn an adult label. At 75 minutes played without interval, it is a relatively short show but great fun.