This is the second year in Norwich for How Like An Angel, and it continues to be a startling and impressive spectacle.
Mixing highly skilled acrobatics with a millennia of spiritual music and the soaring architecture of Norwich Cathedral, Circa and I Fagiolini have created a masterly show.
Its real strength is its immediacy: the performers are not isolated on stage but move through the standing audience. You can hear their breathing, see their muscles straining as they tumble over each other or climb the silks.
Despite that, you still can’t comprehend how someone can have that much strength in their hands to support their weight on a simple piece of fabric, dozens of feet in the air.
The show has changed since 2012 to match the skills of the performers, but some core parts – the fall, delicate and impressive bowl work, the silks – remain.
These are moments when the audience is frozen in disbelief.
The most striking alteration is the conclusion, with three acrobats on the pole rather than two. I preferred the duelling clarity of the previous incarnation, but it remains a breathtaking finale.
How Like An Angel is a true celebration of what man can be.
