Cirque du Soleil's Delirium

The show is designed entirely for touring, normally stopping off for a few nights in each city. This contradicts other Cirque du Soleil shows that hang around for a few months before moving on. Delirium is a state of the art multimedia production, loosely flowing through one man's dream state, without simply being some sort of catalogue for lighting fixtures and video equipment — everything used contributes to the show and isn't done to look glitzy or “just because they can”.

When you arrive, you're immediately presented with an enormous 32-metre long stage, covered by a huge scrim similar to an IMAX screen. On either side, two more large screens sit, providing supporting video for the show (I couldn't fit these in my photo of the curtain warmers)!

The stage can operate as double-sided (Alley) or single-sided, depending on the size of the audience. For us at Antwerp Sportpaleis, we saw the single-side version. Either way, from an audience perspective the show combines a great deal of front-projection and rear-projection video that intermix between screens, actors, props, and lighting effects seamlessly.

The scrim is sometimes used to slightly obscure the stage behind video projection, with live video intermixed with smooth animation and pre-produced video, giving rise to some impressive visuals that combine flawlessly with the activity on stage.

Delirium could be described as a mash-up of an urban-tribal-beat driven rock-pop concert with video art and circus performances. During the show, the band play on stage, interacting with the actors, singers, dancers and acrobats, blurring their role somewhat. Everything is seamless and synchronised and nothing is segregated.

While the sheer scale of the visuals and clever symbolism is impressive, the lighting rig also hosts several rail bridges to fly the acrobats and props across the stage, six racks hold video processing equipment, 18 semi-trailers are used to cart the 38 metric tonnes of equipment, and the whole thing can be set up in just nine hours. Ouch!

The only thing I could fault the production on is potentially too much visual indulgence. Everything presented is in such detail that it's easy to miss some of the action, such that you feel that you have to see the show again to appreciate what you have missed.

Delirium has been touring internationally since 2006, and sadly the tour is coming to a close. Cirque du Soleil have found it difficult to find new venues for this technically complex production, and unfortunately there are only two weeks left with the remaining shows in the UK. If you're in the UK, or this show appears again in the future, book your tickets now — you won't be disappointed!

Thanks Al for the early birthday present!