Jade Dunbar, a keen sailor who lives in Falmouth, is the stage manager and show producer. She explained that the first job was determining where all the aerial rigging points should go. “This was crucial because with people hanging in the air we needed to ensure that the dancers, acrobats and stilt walkers had space to manoeuvre without bumping into each other. With a raised staged they can actually fall off the edge.” The show had to be redesigned so that it could fit in the space available, however at certain points the acrobats literally run out of space. “At the corners of the stage they are diving over empty space so they can fit that part of the routine in,” said Jade.

The show takes place three times a day; and for the artists that is a pretty demanding schedule because this is such a physical show. “Avoiding injury is vital and it is very important that the artists have plenty of time to warm up and warm down between performances,” said Jade. As well as using the dressing room, they also have a special warm up room in the centre. The acrobats are all highly skilled tumblers and no mats are used. In the manoeuvre where they stand three high on each other’s shoulders, apparently the middle one has the toughest position because he has to balance on the freestanding one below and support the one above. The artists take most of the cues for the action from the music. “You don’t notice, but in the Show they also make little movements which might look graceful and pretty, but are actual signals, for example, to say I’m clipped in and I’m safe,” added Jade.

The director of the show is Satya Lapham and the display we see has been specially adapted from an hour long performance she created, called Elemental. The original show incorporated four sections – Earth, Fire, Air and Water and it is the Water section which forms the basis of this show. The production company Incandescence is based at St Just, near Penzance in Cornwall. “As a company, one of our passions is mixing different art forms which is where the idea came from mixing puppets and aerial work,” explained Jade.

And by the way…the huge ethereal puppet which dominates centre stage has a nickname back stage of ‘Doris’.