GASHA - Fringe World 2026

Reviewed by Paul Treasure

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In the world that is Fringe, circus has become something of a ubiquitous presence. Every year there are a handful of shows vying for our attention, using various different ploys to try and stand out, whether it be humour, or pulp culture references, or raunchiness, or whatever. Cirqueworks current show, Gasha, takes a different and welcome approach to gain our attention, and it works beautifully. The show is a stylish and sophisticated display, filtering traditional circus forms through a Japanese lens.

The staging is simple and effective. At its essence it is little more than a catwalk, upon (or above) which the cast perform their various routines, with cabaret seating on either side of the catwalk, with normal seating at the end. At the other end is a giant screen which is utilised for projection. These projections are stylish and intricate, drawing our eyes during transitions, but never pulling focus when the performers are in the middle of their acts.

The show opens with a huge red sunrise on the screen as a kimono clad performer walks slowly in front of it. The silhouettes she forms are a beautiful and elegant start to the show. She then comes slowly down the catwalk, where she is attached by her hair to a line and is then hoisted above the stage. She then proceeds to perform a stunning routine where she spins, poses, and swing out over the audience. A thrilling and jaw-dropping opening act.

She is the followed by woman in blonde pigtails who does a spritely hoop twirling routine, starting with one, then two, and ultimately culminating with eight different hoops being twirled y different parts of her body. She is accompanied in this routine by a musician playing the electric guitar. This combination gives the act a gutsiness and vibrancy that similar acts sometimes lack.

The musician on the guitar proceeds to becoming something of an anchor as he provides accompaniment to other acts and transitions, but most notably when he performs a solo on the electric shamisen. This solo, which sound like a jazzed up version of a traditional tune, gets the audience pumped, including a small bit of audience participation.

Subsequent acts were all uniformly spectacular. Our hair-defying aerialist returned for another routine. Imagine a pole dancing pole that is suspended from the ceiling, but not attached at the bottom. She manages a routine that would put most pole dancers to shame, while swaying to and fro out over the audiences’ heads. The hoop-twirler returned for a beautiful silks routine, aided by her kawaii cuteness to engage the audience fully as he played both with us and the silks.

The sole male acrobat of the troupe gave us a powerful routine on the cyr wheel. A large metal ring that he performed a number of skilful manoeuvres while the ring was spinning. As impressive as his acrobatics were, they were upstaged by his final trick. Lifting this gigantic and heavy metal ring and balancing it effortlessly over his head. A feat that would have required great strength, phenomenal balance, and an almost superhuman grip.

The final act of the evening provided one of the biggest unplanned and unexpected highlights of the evening. A foot twirling and balancing act that was very accomplished. One of the hazards of circus that performers do their tricks with apparent ease, without looking like they are breaking a sweat, so we often underestimate exactly how difficult these routines actually are. Four large Japanese umbrellas were brought out, and our performer nonchalantly flipped and juggled one with her feet, then effortlessly balanced two, one on top of the other. The two more umbrellas were added, to form a diamond pattern. When the performer had them perfectly balanced she slowly started to straighten her legs lifting them up in the air, when the middle two umbrellas decided they did not want to behave and shifted ever so slightly, rendering the construction unstable, so she had to drop them and start again. Again she had them balanced and started to lift, and once more the middle two umbrellas almost imperceptibly shifted, and she had to bring them down again. A third time she attempted the trick, the audience literally on the edge of their seat and not daring to breathe as she got them in position, slowly started to lift, and… success! This third time the umbrellas behaved and she was able to complete the rick. The audience went wild with excitement. As an audience we had been reminded how difficult, not just this one trick but the entire evening had been. This is the magic of live performance, it is great to see humans performing at their very best, but sometimes there is nothing like seeing another human faced with adversity and seeing how gloriously they can overcome it. It makes us feel alive, and it makes us feel human like few other things can. While I hope for the performer’s sake that the umbrellas behave for the rest of the run, I feel honoured to have been in the audience where they did not, but she triumphed over them regardless.

The show concluded with a reprise of the sunrise motif and the performer in silhouette walking, this time, into the sunrise. Gasha is simply one of classiest and most stylish acts of this year’s Fringe, not having to rely on any sort of gimmickry to grab our attention. It is also quite possibly one of the best circus performances Fringe has seen for some years.

Reviewer Note: Tickets for this review were provided by the performing company.