Children, beware

Sorry!
Footsbarn Theatre, Victoria Park and touring

As You Like It
Old Vic, until 21 August

Footsbarn Theatre’s new production Sorry! isn’t the greatest show on earth but it may well be the strangest. The conjunction of opposites permeates every level of this peculiar enterprise. The name is English. The players are French. They perform in English and French simultaneously. Sponsored by the Barbican, the show is staged several miles from the City in an east London park. The arena is a big top but the show transcends the circus tradition and offers a bizarre mixture of drama, acrobatics and trained livestock. Most strangely for a circus it has no scruples about frightening small children. My four-year-old son panicked as soon as the entertainment began. We were plunged into total darkness and two scary old men crept into the ring wheeling a coffin and followed by a third actor dressed as a crow or a vampire.