I went to the circus yesterday! Cirque du Soleil is in town and I had booked tickets already in September, for myself, my mother and Ingrid.

Contemporary circus is my favourite form of entertainment, well ahead of theatre, movies and concerts. And Cirque du Soleil consistently delivers great shows. We have seen several – Quidam, Dralion, Varekai and Alegria, and maybe more. Basically I think we went to every one of their shows that visited London during our stay there.

Each of their shows has a theme. I think of Quidam as the French show about a childish sense of wonder; Dralion is the Chinese show; Varekai is the show with the weird creatures. I thought I had seen Saltimbanco as well but now that I try to remember its theme, I cannot, so maybe I haven’t seen it after all.

Yesterday we saw Alegria. Again… but it was well worth seeing again. Alegria is about joy and power – I think of this show as the court of the King of Light. It is courtly, airy, elegant, full of light. A spectacular show, as they all are, with fabulous costumes, great music, and impressively skilled circus acts.

To me the most impressive and most interesting acts are the ones that combine acrobatic skill with dynamism. People flying and tumbling through the air – Russian bars, trapeze, trampoline, etc. This show had them all, and it was as dazzling as ever.

Ingrid’s favourite part was the clowns, and the rest was too long and too grown-up for her. The clown acts in this show tell a story of their own, about travel and longing. And even though all the other acts were very impressive, the clowns were also the part that I had strongest memories of from the last time I saw them.

Amazingly, Svenska Dagbladet was disappointed and found the show soulless compared to Cirkus Cirkör, the main contemporary circus group in Sweden. Yes, Cirkör is more intimate, and their themes are more idealist (like “world peace” and “it’s OK to be yourself”) but they are also simplistic and naïve, almost childish. And while Cirkör are entertaining enough, compared to Cirque du Soleil they are like a country cousin.