Slava's Snowshow at the Civic

By FRANCES TILL

Slava's Snowshow is about clowns in the same way the Eiffel Tower is about 15,000 iron bars: you have to see it to understand.

And see it you should - but come with your hair down, your ego in your pocket and ready for magic.

It's a participatory circus, really, more than a mere stage performance, and a lot of it takes place in, on and within the audience, who are more likely to be thrilled by the intrusion than not, even when the clowns are climbing over the seats.

That's not in any way to diminish the spellbinding performances on the stage itself, as Slava and his crew flow seamlessly through a rarefied pastiche of comic sketches, each more evocative than the last and all just as nuanced as they are broad.

These performers are absolute masters of physical comedy - every motion from the twitch of an eyebrow to the angling of a foot yields maximum effect.

Nothing is left to chance and even the music, sound and lighting are fully realised characters in the performance.

You will have had a tiny taste of Slava's work if you saw the Cirque du Soleil, but nothing in that will prepare you for this spectacular onslaught, which is the best-staged "simple" entertainment in memory.

It's often said that the greatest comedy, particularly when it comes to clowns, is at least partially a transformational masque for tragedy, and there is much of that here.

Slava and most of the troupe are Russian and wear steppe melancholy like a golden glove to sometimes poignant, always enriching effect.

I won't spoil the show by telling you about the stunning special effects except to say there are lots of them and they're capable of getting a laugh - and a gasp - from a stone.

A tip: you can safely skip the $20 programme, which provides no guidance to the performance and offers little else that is not readily available from other sources.

Snowshow's websites are definitely worth a visit, though, before and after:

Slava's Snowshow

Slava' New Zealand show