Look. I know what you’re thinking. No, this isn’t that kind of show. Despite the name, and the late-night time slot, Adult Bubble Show isn’t nearly as debauched or explicit as you’d expect. It’s adult-themed, certainly – foaming with references to sex and drugs, and more than a bit of skin on display towards the end – but it’s not a shallow romp designed purely to titillate.
The company behind it – The Bubble Laboratory, property of Iulia Benze and Kurt Murray – is appropriately named. As some of their skits rightly depict, they’re mad scientists within the bubble, er, sphere. They do things I doubt you knew were even possible with bubbles: structures and patterns and bubbles-within-bubbles; square bubbles, long bubbles, bubbles filled with smoke. The sketches are a bit hokey, a bit camp, and at times cartoonishly lewd, but the science – the core of their art, if you will – is never less than compelling.
The biggest irony of this “adult” bubble show is that every stunt, regardless of the “narrative” at play, reduces the entire audience to gawping kids. We’re all “ooh”-ing and “aah”-ing at the pretty shapes and lights; we grow giddy seeing the whole tent fill with thousands of tiny sparkles. And there’s something irresistibly primal about, well, seeing a really big bubble.
There might be more impressive circus and raunchier burlesque on offer elsewhere, but nothing quite as uniquely fun and original as this.
Adult Bubble Show, Gluttony, until 23 March