FLIP Fabrique balances a delicate tightrope between joyful youth and melancholy in Blizzard, a frosty circus spectacle which will both chill you to the bones and leave you chattering with glee.
FLIP Fabrique balances a delicate tightrope between joyful youth and melancholy in Blizzard, a frosty circus spectacle which will both chill you to the bones and leave you chattering with glee.
It’s the hottest day of the year. London’s Southbank is teeming with sweaty, sun-kissed punters, dead-set on Aperol spritz, ice-creams and aircon. And yet, walking into the darkness of the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, a sudden chill catches the air. A pure white fog hangs over the stage, a lonely piano waits in the wings. We hear the echoes of wind, rattling against unseen windows, whistling through the aisles. Suddenly, the outside heat is forgotten, and the audience is plunged into the icy depths of the Canadian winter.
Blizzard is a tried and tested work by Qubec-based circus outfit FLIP Fabrique, a well-established performance group known for high octane thrills and all-around entertainment. Under the artistic direction of Bruno Gagon, Blizzard has played at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as other circus and arts festivals around the world. As part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary festival, the show is determined to be fun for the whole family, and it is.
There’s a great variety of thrills on offer here, from multi-talented bunch of acrobats, jugglers and slapstick comedians. Ben Nesrallah provides live piano accompaniment as we move through this icy world, greeted by a wide range of characters and movements. There are comedic moments, a ‘public service announcement’ from the Canadian ministry of brrrr for example, a recurring interlude which features one cast member thoroughly bullied by the weather, his clowning prowess in full effect. Then there are more ethereal passages, a beautifully constructed aerial rope dance, in which two performers fly high above the stage, all to an impressive soundscape of low fi, murky drones. There really is something for everything here, and the troupe have done well to provide that mix of genres.
A particular highlight was a moment involving bouncing white snowballs around a glass cube, an intricate and mathematically precise movement which was hypnotic in its delivery. The performers are clearly all masters in their craft, and there are things in Blizzard that will make you gasp, but this is in no way a fire breathing death-defying variety show. Blizzard has a subtlety that is lacking in other circus works of this scale. There is emotional heft here. However, the light-hearted moments are plenty, not least in the final quarter of the performance, where the stunts get more daring, the hula hooping more ridiculous, and the storm gives way to springtime.
The acts are well transitioned between, often with a dynamic shift of stage space, and the lighting, with a heavy use of thick white torchlight and haze, does well to present a wintery atmosphere. There are some clunky moments, but this is to be expected perhaps from a show of this scale, as there is a great deal of technical equipment to be shifted frequently.
Nesrallah’s music treads a line between old and new, there’s lots of honky-tonk piano, but this will then fade into an electronic ambient soundscape, creating something otherworldly and scary. On the whole, the music worked really well. However, there was a moment of ukelele singsong that may have crossed the line from funny to corny. The costumes were also of the latter, and screamed of early 2010’s winter gear, not terrible, but perhaps a little unrefined.
These small points to not detract from what it a highly stylised and quirky display of circus might. Kids will love it, adults will admire it, and you will come out of it with a renewed faith in sunlight.
Blizzard by FLIP Fabrique, is part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme. It plays at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, 27 May – Sun 31 May 2026. https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/blizzard/