Review – Three High Acrobats: Knock Off

In this fantastic acrobatics show, three young tradies lead the audience through instructions on how to make your own circus show. Combining partner and prop based tricks with the tips and tools of Aussie reno blokes, Knock Off reclaims circus performance for the lads.

If you can handle the predictability of the DIY show format, along with the naff puns and recycled jokes, Knock Off is definitely worth seeing for the skillful, relaxed and playful acrobatics. All three performers were incredibly welcoming and charismatic while accomplishing impressive feats of partner/three-way acrobatics, with balancing acts, flips, dives, jumps and climbs to set anybody’s pulse racing.

They cleverly incorporated the unexpected use of work-site tools into their routines, juggling hammers, manipulating a double-ended broom, diving through the rungs of a ladder and launching each other into the air from wooden see-saws. The aerial rope routine was particularly hilarious and impressive, the acrobat’s tongue-in-cheek artistic intensity and flair reminding us that circus should be about fun (and safety, I guess), first and foremost.

Bromantic cowboys and a dorky apprentice will have you on the edge of your seat in the intimate (and difficult to find) Wonderland Spiegeltent (opposite Ice House). Laced with naughty jokes too well-disguised for the young ones to detect, Knock Off is for kids and adults. A fun, impressive circus show that doesn’t take itself too seriously.