This week seven late show is a mixture of a circus show gone wrong and a sketch show gone right: Cirque De L’extraordinaire it is perhaps not, but it’s worth seeing for the laughs.

At first, one is confused, almost baffled. A sketch show with more than just four guys, on a plain black stage and simple spotlighting? Surely not. And yet, the Cirque opens with the razzle dazzle of a Broadway musical and a plethora of morph suits! The drama continues with the tragic death of the circus’ main act – Cosmo the human canon. But the show must go on and Jordan, Guy, Sam, Theo and friends are able to step in and save the day, providing alternative entertainment through the medium of sketch comedy. The Ringmaster promises a bearded lady, acrobats, contortionists and live animals, and that is (almost) exactly what is delivered.

As it usually seems to go, some sketches were funnier than others. The better ones, such as New Year's eve 1959, the magician, the surfing short, the contortionist, combined audience participation with well written jokes. Trés amusant.

Other sketches didn’t work so well. An example of this is the 118 boxer, Colonel miniman and pacman, mostly because they were too long. Although the idea of bringing a sketch show and a circus together works beautifully in theory, Cirque at times lacked coherence. The two main 'circus' components, both acrobatic acts (fabric and trapeze), dragged on and contributed to the show's running time of over an hour and a half. These performers were skilled, but they would have benefitted from doing fewer ‘moves’ to a higher quality in a shorter time. After about 80 minutes of sketches, we arrived at the closing scenes. Suddenly a projector screen appeared with the face of Cosmos returning from beyond. It was weird and rather lengthy.

I laughed a lot, and much can be said for that, but unfortunately the show currently lies a little awkwardly between its sketch comedy and circus genres. It seems the aim was to produce something beyond just a good sketch show, and this could be achieved if the show was tightened up. Of course this was the first night and, if certain overdrawn scenes are revisited, future nights are likely to be sharper.