Cirque du Soleil is the most spectacular circus company I know of. Each act is more difficult than anything that normal circuses attempt, and performed to perfection. Individual acts are joined into a seamless performance with not a moment of silence or empty scenes. Costumes and decor are artful and resplendent. Music is written especially for each show and performed live, also faultlessly.

Indeed CdS are so far above normal circus that it would be unfair to even compare them. So I won’t. I’ll talk about Alegria, the latest of their shows to visit London, only in the context of other CdS shows.

Had this been my first experience of CdS I would have been utterly dazzled and charmed. But having seen four of them over five years, I have to say that it left me slightly disappointed. Somehow there seemed to be less life in this performance than the previous ones – the decorations are taking over and leaving less space for actual circus. Too much time was spent looking at pretty girls posing in pretty costumes. It was all a bit too courtly, where I would have liked to see more passion and energy. More action, please!

Russian bars	Trampolines

The music is a case in point: it was pretty enough, but almost indistinguishable from last year’s, and from the year before that, and therefore not very memorable.

The first CdS performance we saw was also the best: Quidam. It was a bit more adult and less sugary-sweetly pretty.

The two best acrobatic acts: tumbling on two long trampolines, and Russian bars (which is a wide bar in some sort of semi-flexible material, held on the shoulders of two men, on which a third performer performs somersaults).

But for the first time ever, my favourite part of the show were the clowns, especially one scene that was more mime than traditional circus clowning. The clown walked on stage, opened a large suitcase, took out a coat and hat, and hung them on a rope ladder. Another rope ladder laid on the floor, plus sounds of an old steam engine, hinted at a railway station. With that as his only props, he acted out a tender scene of taking farewell: his left arm animating the left sleeve of the coat, he was playing both voices of the conversation. He did it so well that the performance was vividly tragic and simultaneously absurd.

The next scene showed the same clown alone in a snowy emptiness. Then it started to snow little bits of silk paper. The snowfall grew until it swelled into a magnificent snowstorm, with howling winds and swinging lights, and “snow” falling over half the audience. It was so unexpected and over-the-top immersive that I laughed aloud out of joy.