The first show from the Generating Company, which has risen phoenix-like from the ashes of the Millennium Dome show, was a delight. In one of the vast chambers at the Circus Space twenty talented performers created a surreal city peopled by eccentrics and misfits. The position of the audience, in the centre of a ring of bright colours and movement, was a reminder of De La Guarda – but unlike that show, Storm had characters, a throughline and a peculiarly British sense of humour. All around were towers of scaffolding, net and ropes – to climb up, fall off, and swing from – and on the walls were vertical representations of a living room and an office, around which harnessed performers moved as if standing upright. The whole thing was like a huge detailed painting that had come to life. And then, at the end of the twenty-four hour period indicated by a radio DJ, came the storm itself – perhaps not quite as impressive as it could have been (I wanted more wind!) but still a cause of chaos and disorder.

The circus skills on show were brilliant, of course, but just as impressive was the fact that all the singing and much of the music was live. Keyboards, guitar and percussion mixed together with verve; there was a very fine solo played on bottles of water, and a wonderful piece of salsa was sung by a performer hanging high up between folds of material. The show could have been a little tighter, and this might have been due to the lack of a single overall director (four of the cast shared the directing) – but overall a magical, comical, energetic evening was had by all.