Reviews Round-up of Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo at the Royal Albert Hall in London

"Impressive staging and delightful acts"

"Valentyna Paylevanyan floats above the audience in a basket and Stéphane Gentilini rides an airborne bicycle in this charming production at the Royal Albert Hall"

"It is the charm rather than the wow factor that stands out in this beautifully mounted Cirque du Soleil production. The title, Corteo, is Italian for cortege or procession. The show’s premise is that a clown named Mauro is organising his own funeral celebration. The result is a softer, dreamier extravaganza than the world-conquering Canadian circus company usually delivers, and that’s no bad thing."

"This staging at Cirque’s usual London home of the Royal Albert Hall is impressive. Ingeniously, the venue’s vast auditorium is split in half with the audience seated either side. Sightlines are great and the international cast huge, topping 50 and including an eight-strong band of musicians and singers. Led by Stéphane Gentilini’s highly agreeable Mauro, they imbue the performance with a generous, Fellini-esque spirit."

"I will forgive the spot or two of low comedy and instead savour this mainly entrancing show’s literal high point: Valentyna Paylevanyan, a diminutive Ukrainian who floats above us punters in a basket attached to four giant white balloons. Delightful."

"High-risk, high-reward acrobatics are a giddy joy"

"A clown’s funeral procession is the pretext for some of the most skilled performers in the business to swoop, float and fly through the air"

"This show, originally made in 2005 and remounted in 2018, has everything you expect from Cirque du Soleil: world-class acrobatics, whimsical romanticism, scale and spectacle, “Ooh!” and “Ah!”, slightly disappointing comedy, and a nonchalant attitude to narrative."

"The quality of the acts is unarguable. Beds turned into trampolines are a highlight: a kids’ dream writ large, performers bouncing and tumbling with giddy joy. Its buoyancy is infectious. There is plenty of show-stopping, high-risk, high-reward action, multiplied for extra effect"

"It is artful and accessible entertainment, always impressive. It’s just a shame the funeral setup is merely a framing device rather than a source of dramatic oomph."

"The latest from the Montreal circus titans is exasperatingly thematically wishy washy, but the acrobatics are jaw-dropping"

"Corteo is quintessential Cirque du Soleil, insofar as it has a clear, simple and alluring theme that it flubs totally, but has such jaw-dropping set pieces that you don’t exactly leave with dramaturgical quibbles at the front of your mind."

"A circus show doesn’t need a story per se, but Corteo’s refusal to explore its own premise is so pathological it speaks of demand avoidance."

"Still, if you’re here for setpieces, Corteo delivers - there is some astounding aerial work, some cool bouncing around on big beds, some amazing hoop stuff, and it’s all enhanced by a traverse staging that makes the Royal Albert Hall feel reasonably intimate."

"The Royal Albert Hall has been split in two for Cirque du Soleil’s latest annual residence, with Corteo being performed on a traverse stage that bisects the cavernous auditorium. As with the show itself, it’s a hugely impressive technical accomplishment, even if it leaves you slightly mystified regarding why it’s been done at all."

"The acts themselves loosely represent the stages of Mauro’s life, starting with some trampolining on the beds in his grandmother’s house. It’s perfectly sweet, though it doesn’t get close to the wow factor in 2023’s Kurios when the artists jumped as high as the lighting rig."

"As ever with Cirque at the Hall, the visuals of it all – shout out to set designer Jean Rabasse and costume designer Dominique Lemieux – are spectacular, and the way the company so utterly transforms the space, particularly in this instance, is genuinely jaw-dropping. But the content and the concept both feel underwhelming, particularly considering that the moment that should be considered its centrepiece feels compromised."