'a magical roll in the hay with Australia's top circus crew'.

Strong chicks rule in 'Barely Contained', the new show from Circus Oz in the big top at Tumbalong Park. From a bonkers ballet to the bed of nails, the most daring aerial stunts and the silliest stuck-in-a-chair routine, it is the women - in fetching vintage underwear - who are rocking the tent.

The first most-excellent babe is Tiffany (Eli Green), the "event coordinator", greeting the crowd with a clipboard and a few rules - and chastising those who arrive late - before introducing the performers. The stage is set with an elegant dining table complete with candelabra and a chandelier overhead. Soon we are all guests at an out-of-control wedding party with Tiffany as the ultimate bridezilla. When her groom (acrobat and tumbler Tom Flanagan) fails to bring the rings to the ceremony, he runs off and comes back with a set of super-sized wedding bands that sends Tiff into a desperate and hilarious hula-hoop solo.

The guests prove unruly with ropes, whips, plates, stilts, chairs, hats, a teeterboard and in-line skates. A mob of bouncing kangaroos upsets the wedding table, spills into the aisles and has the kids in the audience shrieking.

Oz veteran Mel Fyfe is back as the tap-dancing strong woman who endures all kinds of backchat from naughty sidekick Emma J. Hawkins, who stands just over a metre tall and commands the stage with her snappy humour and vibrant dancing. Their tap-dancing, acrobatic double act is eye-popping and joyous.

Rockie Stone delivers a tender, chair-balancing adagio with Paul O'Keeffe that is so sexy they literally end up swinging from the chandelier. Shannon Barnett plays the trombone sensuously - even when she's metres in the air, hanging upside down, her foot gripped between Fyfe's thighs. Flip Kammerer's tumbling, skating and aerial stunts are both breathtaking and funny.

Artistic director Mike Finch and show director Derek Ives have created a vaudeville-inspired circus, with performers in corsets and suspenders (or dapper waistcoats for the chaps) getting sweaty to a versatile three-piece band.

My five-year-old date though the show was "awesome" from the moment the first unicycle rolled on. It was also "so dangerous" and "they really shouldn't be doing that". Sensory overload kicked in at one point - he had to close his eyes and needed rolled-up Kleenex in his ears - but for the rest of us 'Barely Contained' was a magical roll in the hay with Australia's top circus crew.

The Sun Herald
Elissa Blake