Circus: La Cucina dell'Arte

Circus Ronaldo

David and Danny Ronaldo

Russell Square, Northbridge

Until February 24

As the name suggests, La Cucina dell’Arte takes place in a restaurant, in this case a pizzeria where the chef (David) battles it out with his ditzy assistant (Danny).

There was much breaking of plates and cocking of snooks in the set-up, but things came to a head when the two boys chose different women from the audience to be their guest for dinner on stage.

Things start flying about, and, in the process, Danny shows his considerable talent at plate-spinning, balancing, a bit of juggling and, especially, the wild and wonderful things you can do with pizza dough.

After a cute, albeit predictable, denouement, and a gracious rapprochement between performers and audience members, we filed back out into the dragon-infested night.

That’s all good, as far as it goes, but even at a smart 70 minutes, the show felt a little long, and, while Danny’s routines were skilful and funny, there just wasn’t enough of them, and a bit too much incidental business.

Just down the other end of James Street there are other tents, and inside them there are performers with history and a venerable performance tradition of their own, and they are going hell-for-leather to entertain at half the ticket price.

It’s shaping up to be a long, hot summer in Perth.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian.