Friday night in Harrogate and the audience are ready to be entertained. As the music begins and the band and lead singer launch into the first of many big Celine vocals, it is clear that the main attraction of this production is the phenomenal voice of Julia Martin playing Celine Dion not just in voice, but with spookily accurate facial expressions and affectations of the power ballad superstar. Martin works hard in the first ten minutes, belting out hits and hitting every note perfectly, and it is clear this is a very high quality tribute act. The band of five, Joe Holt on keys, Kalvin Watson on bass, Brad Clifford on drums and MD and guitarist Curtis Senior play enthusiastically and are slick. And then the acrobatics begin…
The premise of Cirque de Celine is an interesting one – mix the powerhouse vocals and famous songs of Celine Dion with a multimedia visual spectacle and add in acrobatics and dance numbers. It has the ingredients of a huge budget, high end Vegas residency.
But the success of all such ideas is in the execution, and this production has some incredible elements and others that miss the mark in a way that makes you wonder, ‘what if?’. Like, ‘What if they had more than four dancers?’, What if the circus acts were much more interesting, bigger and more jaw dropping?’, ‘What if they dropped the Cirque du Soleil theme entirely and just went back to an exceptional quality tribute?’.
The best moments come when the very acoustically tight band and Martin are rocking out together, there is a power and an energy that is difficult to not get swept along with. Too often though, these are followed by, or intruded upon by the four (not unskilled) dancers who take turns with ribbons, contemporary dance, stilt walking and fire play. It’s the kind of thing that if it was free entertainment in your Spanish hotel on holiday you’d be blown away by, but here on a medium sized stage it looks low budget and a little clunky.
The promotional video for Cirque de Celine has a gospel choir, saxophonist, aerial silks and fabric flame boxes in it, but none of that was on show in this seemingly pared down production. Instead, there was a big projection at the back that played a variety of Celine Dion’s music videos synched to the songs that were being performed, and often less successfully showed either footage of New York’s Times Square or bizarrely some animations that felt like something from Avatar mixed with an eighties special effects package. It may be due to the size of the theatre space, or the fact that this is a touring production, but it lacked a little oomph, pizazz and pow – the stage sometimes felt empty even with a band, Celine Dion and the odd acrobat.
This production was, to be fair, a crowd pleaser, some were on their feet by the end, but the applause was clearly for the strength of the musical talent and experience on the stage, rather than the concept itself. A straightforward Celine Dion tribute would have been just as enjoyable, if not more so.
Reviewed on 7th March 2025.
