Shows & cabaret

• Happy Factory

  

  5th May 2023
  Revel Pucks Big Top, Brighton

  Leave your cares behind and step into the world of the Happy Factory, where happiness and imagination reign supreme!

  Airealism is bringing their joyful, feel-good show to Brighton! Expect the beautiful, the surreal and the breath-taking, with an added sprinkling of humour. Join Airealism on an unforgettable journey through a world where jaw-dropping aerial circus, zany physical theatre and some heart-felt storytelling will send you into the night smiling!

• Happy Factory

  

  14th-19th March 2023
  Vault Festival, London

  Are you concerned with the cacophonic cascade of crazy caucusing characters? Do you find yourself frowning furiously at the flagrantly fabricated fictions feigning for fact? Are you baffled by the belligerent barrage of border-busting, barbaric, bloody battles?

  If so, then you are invited to step inside the Happy Factory — a world so surreal and entertaining that you will soon forget your troubles and get happy!

  Airealism returns to VAULT Festival with a brand new show skilfully blending jaw-dropping aerial circus with physical theatre that will capture your imagination.

• Don't Look Back

  

  4th-8th March 2020
  Vault Festival, London

  No-one who enters the labyrinth ever returns.

  Theseus searches deep underground for the terrible Minotaur. Ariadne must decide where her loyalties lie. Daedalus and Icarus are trapped, desperate to escape. As the story unravels, revealing the choices each make, do we control our destinies or are they entirely in the hands of the three Fates?

  Follow the thread and join the cast of Airealism deep in the labyrinth as the Fates weave their tale inspired by Greek myths using aerial circus & physical theatre.

• Sisters Grimm

  

  12th-16th September 2018
  Jacksons Lane, Highgate, London

  Once upon a time in an enchanted forest, just like any other enchanted forest, there transpired a twisted tale of trickery.

  Witness the gallant pole-climbing wolf, spy the alluring arachnids spin their yarn, see the swaggering step-sisters on trapeze, and behold the hottest hothead of them all: the evil Queen (and her magic mirror)!

  Join us in this fantastical, gender-bending tale of Sisters Grimm: the stuff of nightmares, dreams and roller disco romance.

• Down the Rabbit Hole

  

  4th-8th March 2015
  Vault Festival, London

  In 1865 Alice stumbled down the rabbit hole entering a world of intrigue and delight that has fascinated the child in all of us ever since.

  150 years on Airealism are plunging back down the rabbit hole, taking the audience on an immersive journey to Wonderland but this is Wonderland as you've never seen it before.

  Come and join the Mad Hatter as he still holds court over the tea party that never ends whilst wonderland takes to the air desperate to entertain and enthrall their audience as they did in the time of Alice. We welcome you to see the crazy, beautiful and daring escapades of the Mad Hatter and his company.

• The Lost Circus

  

  4th-8th February 2014
  Vault Festival, London

  In early 1914 the air is thick with frost, the cold is so breath-taking that traffic is absent people rush to get indoors after only the most essential journeys. A train approaches the station but ice and snow prevent the brakes from slowing. Hundreds are killed, including the troupe of circus performers that had been travelling to entertain Londoners with their daring feats of aerial performance, eye-popping acrobatics and all around zany antics.

  Trapped under the station, the souls of these performers remain, bringing about never-ending carnivals: spectres of a circus that once was. Every 50 years a crack in the time-space continuum allows visitors to enter the world of the abandoned circus. The audience is invited to engage in an immersive experience, joining the inner circle of the travelling team, whilst they carry on backstage, run their routines and dazzle the crowd.

• The Bleeding Hearts Circus

  

  30th May-1st June 2013
  Hoxton Hall, London

  The Bleeding Hearts Circus, an intimate cabaret dedicated to love in all its many forms. As with all affairs of the heart, there will be displays of raw twisted passions, soaring highs and crushingly heartbreaking lows as performers take a heady journey along the well-trodden path of romance. Stories will unfold on the ground and high up in the air on trapezes, silks, corde lisses and aerial hoops… The Bleeding Hearts Circus was a huge success, playing to sell-out crowds!

• Sand & Steam

  

  13th-15th September 2012
  Hoxton Hall, London

  This whimsical, retro, high-energy jaunt to the seaside blended aerial circus, acrobalance and physical theatre: sailors and pirates, sea dogs and sequins, trapeze and rope, silks and hoop, froth and fights, seaweed and frights and sea creatures from the deep. Sand & Steam sold out all three shows.

• FUN

  

  6th-9th October 2010
  Hoxton Hall, London

  FUN combined aerial circus, dance and physical theatre into a high-energy, uplifting and entertaining 90 minute show.

• NOIR and Tales of the Apocalypse at Edinburgh Fringe

  

  2nd-16th August 2009
  Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

  Airealism performed a two-week run at the Gilded Balloon for Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with Noir performed in the daytime and then the darker cabaret Tales of the Apocalypse performed in the late evening. Featuring trapeze, silk, rope, hoop, cargo net and an inflating parachute.

  “Noir brilliantly bottles the genre without using a cell of film” – The Guardian (August 2009)

• Tales of the Apocalypse

  

  21st-24th January 2009,
  28th-31st January 2009
  Shunt, London Bridge Vaults

  An explosive gravity-defying array of circus acts exploring the untold doom and destruction that lies ahead. Entropic visions, ghostly entities, imploding stars and radioactive dust - all feature and more besides

  “...a truly transporting experience, yoking together images of delicacy and power with breathtaking skill” Time Out Critic’s Choice of the Week (Jan 2009)

• Singalong Circus Nativity

  19th-20th December 2008
  

  Airealism collaborated with The Hangar Arts Trust for this magical, irreverent piece of festive circus, directed by Alex Frith for the local community.

• Don’t Feed the Freaks

  31st October-1st November 2008
  Hangar Arts Trust, Woolwich, London

  A spectacular Halloween spectre-fest in collaboration with the Hangar Arts Trust and international aerial artists.

• Airealism at Shunt

  

  15th-18th October 2008,
  22nd-25th October 2008
  Shunt, London Bridge Vaults

  For their first outing to Shunt Airealism performed an amazing and experimental array of airborne acts: glowing insect-beings perform triples routine on trapeze, a suicidal businessman plunges to his death on the silk, an evil and disjointed doll is brought to life on hoop. Meanwhile an eerie gothic trio of rope artists are possessed by the spirit of Harry Belafonte! “unfeigned avant-gardism” Time Out.

• NOIR

  

  June 2008
  Glastonbury Festival

  Performed at Glastonbury Festival. Airealism revised their successful feature length show to suit the requirements of the festival’s circus big top. Featuring trapeze, silk, rope, hoop and an inflating parachute, this was one of our proudest ventures to date. “Top 20 acts of the week”, Glastonbury Programme 2008.

• NOIR

  

  30th-31st October 2007
  The Albany, Deptford, London

  A detective is hired by a mysterious syndicate to investigate a murder, resulting in a dark and deadly quest for the truth in which his very soul will be placed in jeopardy… Airealism’s first big ensemble show sold out for its run at The Albany theatre. Based on the genre of film noir and performed in the round, this ambitious production featured three trapezes, three ropes, a silk, a hoop, two cargo nets and harness work. “…by all accounts the show was a huge success” Albany Theatre.

• They Came From Above

  

  29th-31st October 2006
  Jacksons Lane, Highgate, London

  Zombies, vampires and things that go bump in the night. Airealism’s initial forays into the world of professional performance attracted packed out houses throughout their runs.

• A Fairytale Circus

  

  21st-22nd April 2006
  Jacksons Lane, Highgate, London

  A magical concoction of children’s stories re-imagined up in the air.