Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Prince falls in love with Odette and is rather taken with Odile, but the similarities end there. Duck Pond by Brisbane-based circus outfit Circa is a jolly mash-up of Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling which began its Christmas run at the Royal Festival Hall on Thursday. It’s all done with grace and musicality and a light dusting of humour.Circus shows tend to suffer from a lack of structure, generally consisting of very different skills — tumbling, juggling, trapeze, clowning — strung together in a revue-like format. There may be talk of a unifying theme (Cirque du Soleil generally supplies something of the sort) but no discernible shape. Circa’s artistic director Yaron Lifschitz addresses this problem by tethering his spectacles to familiar scores and stories — everything from Daphnis and Chloe to Shaun the Sheep. In Duck Pond the vague sense of narrative tension is maintained: will the Prince win Odette? Will the Ugly Duckling get her heart’s desire? Spoiler alert: no and yes.Tchaikovsky’s score is playfully — sometimes infuriatingly — deconstructed and remixed by composer/sound designer Jethro Woodward, who redistributes the familiar tunes among unexpected instruments and plays them at surprising speeds. The wide, shallow Festival Hall stage is framed by strip curtains through which the ten versatile performers appear and disappear. Libby McDonnell kits them out in practical unitards and fleshings embellished here and there with a ruff (for Odette), a crown (Siegfried) or a set of yellow sequinned duck feet.The acrobatics are smoothly done — but not too smoothly. It’s always nice to be reminded just how difficult it is to form a 20ft column with four human bodies. Men of seemingly normal size and build allow grown women to stand on their outstretched hands. Catchers create human springboards to launch colleagues through the air while the audience wonders at the sheer trust required to hurl yourself through space into a co-worker’s waiting arms.The duets for Siegfried and his two swans are enjoyably tricksy, packed with spins, throws and catches that make even John Cranko’s famously acrobatic pairwork look like a walk in the park. Individual performers get to show off their party pieces. Now and then a corde lisse will drop from the ceiling, allowing someone to pose and twirl. One of them does things with hoops. Kimberley Rossi’s Odile displays her dominatrix side in a wince-making duet in which she walks all over a prone man in 6in blood-red stilettos — fans of Elizabeth Taylor (and foot fetishists) will be reminded of her Oscar-winning turn in 1960’s Butterfield 8).Duck Pond is billed as suitable for ages five and up, but the average six-year-old might weary of the incessant somersaults. At 80 minutes it is shorter (and far cheaper) than a family outing to Cirque du Soleil but Zippos Circus, back at Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland, might be a safer bet. The latter’s Cirque Berserk features the glorious Globe of Death in which three motorcyclists loop the loop inside a steel cage, missing a dauntless damsel by millimetres. A happy ending? Almost certainly (but best watched through the fingers just in case).★★★☆☆To December 39, duckpond.live
