Directors: Katharine Arnold, Isis Clegg-Vinell, and Nathan Price
A small theatre-in-the-round is an amazing place to watch acrobats. Not only can you see every straining muscle and shaking thigh close up, but there’s the added frisson of wondering whether a stray foot or flaming torch will make contact with the front row of the audience. Spotlights in pink, turquoise and gold slice through the smoky air and party tunes add a deafening thump to Underbelly’s assault on the senses.
Sophie’s Surprise Party takes a member of the audience to be Sophie each night and uses the excuse of a nominal birthday to create a spectacular celebration of human physicality. There are bucketloads of skill and wonder, laughter and silliness, all set to banging 90s songs played at a level that reverberates in your diaphragm and distorts the base.
The show’s three co-directors have all worked with Cirque du Soleil, and the troupe’s playfulness and innovation owe a fair amount to Soleil’s internationally-celebrated shows. But there’s plenty here that’s new, funny, fascinating and undeniably death-defying. Aerial choreography is performed without safety nets or harnesses with genuine jeopardy and heart-stopping moments. Katharine Arnold, a hugely talented aerialist and choreographer, starts with a comic routine that sees her sprawling and tumbling – as if by accident – down a several-metres-high pink rope, dressed in knotty wig, false teeth and cardigan. In the second half, she performs a startlingly beautiful sequence with a hoop. It follows an extraordinary transformation that she introduces with a deadpan: “This is the one where I change everything about myself in order to appease the gaze of the male.”
Arnold’s co-director Nathan Price is another gifted acrobat. His whirling act with roller-skates has a new partner, Emily McCarthy, former Team GB Olympic gymnast. McCarthy has stepped into the terrifyingly airborne shoes of third co-director Isis Clegg-Vinell, who has just had a baby. Juggler and diabolo-spinner extraordinaire Willem McGowan is another relative newcomer to Sophie. McGowan trained in Quebec and combines elegant diabolo work with lashings of Captain America-style charisma. Performing his sequences to Footloose and sporting a Travolta-style leather jacket, his character seems to hail from slightly earlier eras than most of the cast, who stick to the theme of 1990s pastiche.
Acrobat and aerialist Cornelius Atkinson has also worked with Cirque du Soleil. Like other performers, he has a distinct role for all or part of the show. Price, with his face printed on condoms, is “the fuckboy”. Atkinson, with mournful expression, pale make-up, black lipstick and a soft white toy rabbit, is “the goth”. It’s a role that’s slightly undermined when he pulls his shirt off to reveal a physique honed by years of unbelievable feats of upper-body strength. His work involves flying across the tiny auditorium, hanging from one hand or foot and dropping a fellow-performer from eye-watering heights to be caught by his rival below. The brief spoken sections of the show work slightly less well than the acts themselves, but Atkinson performs a hilarious Twilight fan-fic spoof, and there are some lovely set-ups (how to resolve a love triangle? A highly choreographed acrobatic number, of course).
The sixth member of this versatile and extraordinary ensemble is hair-hanger and fire artist Josie Jones. Suspended from her top knot and spinning so fast she is a blur of movement, or twirling in a hoop of fire, she is breathtaking to watch. She also performs a comedy burlesque, part of the troupe’s winking playfulness when it comes to gender and costume-based circus traditions.
This is an endearing as well as a heart-stopping show, and there is plenty of love from the audience, who are on their feet by the end and often mouthing along to the deafening music. Sophie’s Surprise Party is a high-octane evening’s entertainment in the crowded heart of the West End.
Runs until 10 January 2026
