The greatest miracle about this performance at Wimbledon Theatre is that no one went flying off the stage or ended up slicing anyone. Translated as Ice Circus what you get is a whole lot of ice skaters taking a turn on a very small ice skating rink on stage plus a mix of dancing, ballroom and circus thrown in. It had a very slow start but once it hit its stride it was magnificent by the end of the first half, and then came back kind of flat in the second half but still had some stand out performances.

In Cirque de Glace – Evolution, as the title suggests, you are taken through the evolution of the world from the big bang, to the eras of the caveman, ice age, fire, the wheel, man on moon, modern times (ice dancers in suits with newspapers.) It seemed to lose this theme about mid-way through the second half … perhaps because they had run out of eras we would recognise and therefore opted for something a bit weirder.

The skill of the skaters and performers on stage was evident. On the minute rink there wasn’t much margin for error and every time someone was swung out or someone went for a double axle jump or equivalent my heart was in my mouth. Would there be a spectacular crash? Thankfully there wasn’t – an in fact I didn’t see any sort of ice skating mistake at all.

Good costumes, good music, nice use of the lighting and for the moment a fairly unique show worth seeing. Apart from the slow parts mentioned above if there was one negative it was that there were some awkward moments when the audience weren’t sure whether it was an appropriate moment to clap and congratulate the performers – sometimes obvious cues help and this is good for the crowd and the performer.