All Star Circus: Head First Spiegel Gardens, Fringe

Brighton Fringe never has a shortage of circus on offer, All Star Circus from the multi-award-winning Head First Acrobats earns its place at the top of the pile for families looking for something genuinely exciting.

The Spiegeltent is an experience. Its mirrored interior and circus-tent canopy carry an atmosphere that whispers of a long tradition of travelling performers, outsiders, and artists who have always made space for anyone. It is a place where belonging feels baked and All Star Circus deepens that feeling.

The ensemble packs an range of disciplines into sixty minutes: backflips of vertiginous precision, one-arm handstands that drew audible gasps from the adults and screams of delight from the children, hypnotic hula hoops that seemed to defy the most basic negotiations between gravity and ambition, and performers spinning upside down on straps and trapeze with the casual confidence of people for whom the extraordinary is simply Tuesday. The sheer physical generosity of the cast is infectious.

Comedy is the thread linking into every act. Fart jokes land with the precision of a trained acrobat (the five-year-old in our group very nearly lost their mind with joy), skateboard sequences draw grins, and hula hoop work that seems impossible is made to look effortless. The slapstick is timed with a craftsman's care, broad enough for the youngest in the room, layered enough for the adults who think they are merely supervising. I found myself laughing before I had entirely registered why.

The host deserves particular praise. Warm, high-energy, they kept the audience on a knife-edge between anticipation and laughter throughout. But what stayed with me, and what I suspect will stay with the children who were present long after the sequins have faded from memory, was the sincerity with which they spoke directly to the young people in the audience. The message was simple and offered without condescension: these extraordinary things you are watching? They are available to you. Not as fantasy, but as possibility, through dedication, through training, through the hard and joyful work of practising something until it becomes beautiful. In a world that frequently tells young people what they cannot be, watching a performer look a child in the eye and say you could do this is quietly radical, and moving.

Audience interaction is woven in with a light but confident touch, volunteers are treated with warmth and dignity, which tells you everything about the culture this company has built. There is a genuine joy in this show that feels inclusive in the deepest sense: not as a marketing gesture, but as a lived commitment to making everyone in the room feel seen and welcome. Families of every configuration, from every walk of life, will find something here brings out the grins.

The combination of comedy and thrilling physical performance is, ultimately, this show's greatest achievement. Neither element overwhelms the other; they breathe together, giving the audience a moment to release tension through laughter before the next act pulls the floor from under them again. It is masterfully calibrated entertainment, old-fashioned in the best possible sense, which is to say timeless, these Folx know what they're doing.

The five-year-old has not stopped talking about it since. That is, I suspect, the most honest review any circus show will ever receive.

All Star Circus is a joyful, generous, and genuinely thrilling choice for fringe families.

All Star Circus runs until May 31st, every day 11:30am. More info or to book tickets at Brighton Fringe.