The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular. Morphettville Racecourse. 1 Nov 2026
If you caught the pre-show performances, you would know that nothing here will behave. Before a single act takes the ring, magician Vincent Gwo is working the foyer crowd. He is all dry wit and much quicker hands. A card we nominate turns up in his pocket, before the whole pack vanishes from his hands. Then he lifts a pair of cups, and there, out of nowhere, come five or six mandarins. Elsewhere fortunes are being told, photos are being taken, and the performers are interacting with their audience one-to-one.
Inside the Hippodrome, 1,400 seats rise steeply around the circular ring. Wherever we sit, we are close. The lights drop, the band hits, and Come Alive erupts around us in surround sound. It is genuinely exhilarating, and we barely draw a breath until it’s over.
Our tour guide through this experience is Max, played by Ruby Clark. She has come to meet her boyfriend who is performing in the circus as a trapeeze artist. Des Flanagan plays the silver-tongued Showman. They are supported by a group of amazing singers, each given a character: Olivia Carniato as Eve the Snake Charmer, Jade Delmiguez as Sapphire the Fortune Teller, Harrison Riley as Tex the Cowboy, and Charly Williams as Samson the Strongman. They exist inside and outside of the storyline, like an ethereal presence constantly underscoring the action.
The aerialists are up first. A hoop lifts into the dark and Itzel Salvatierra folds herself through it, spinning higher and faster. When she lets go with everything but her neck and keeps spinning our collective mouths are wide.
Terrini, a five-strong tumbling troupe of Harley Timmermans, Tim Simpson, Ewan Schell, Julia Konieczny and Niña Brown, tear across the floor in a blur of flips and stacked bodies backed by From Now On. Timmermans has worked with Gravity & Other Myths, a nod to Adelaide's own acrobatic powerhouse. The teeterboard troupe Anarkali, including Shaun Gregory and Ben Van Overberghe follow, flyers launched skyward as the singers give a stirring rendition of the “Woah, Woahs” from This Is Me. Following them Shona Morgan, as the enigmatic Shadow of the Showman, carves wide, rolling arcs on the Cyr wheel to Never Enough.
Then there are the clowns. The eight credited dancers double as the show's clown troupe: Maisie Axton, Ally Bircher, Steve Costi, Diego García Rendon, Samantha Goldie, Owen Jones, Liam Papanicolaou and Malena Searles. They are the evening's secret weapon, executing high precision choreography by Jerry Reeve and Lukas McFarlane.
During A Million Dreams aerialist Lucy Ridings spins suspended by her hair while, beneath her, the clowns work through a tightly drilled chair routine. Then Griffin Hooper, playing the trapeze artist Corey, swings out over the ring to Rewrite the Stars. The vocal wavers off pitch in places here, the night's one real wobble, though these singers carry harmonies that are punishingly high, with ease for the rest of the performance. The Showman then sets about luring Max into taking over his role as Showman with The Other Side. The clowns dance around and through them until the lights fall and the mysterious Shadow returns, masked and in black, on a Cyr wheel glowing electric red and blue. It is a striking image to carry into interval.
The second half opens with a reprise of Come Alive and now Max is our new Showman and ringmaster. Andrew Sumner hangs from two straps, contorting and spinning with a control that looks effortless. A reworked mash-up of The Other Side follows, then Solomon Solgit takes to a slack rope and sways to Tightrope, delivering some of the most spectacular balancing seen in recent years, first on foot, then on a unicycle and finally on a ladder! Fire twirlers send heat across the front rows next, before From Now On and This Is Me build the room up again.
And then we are part of the show. A call and response game, played section by section, turns 1,400 strangers into a choir as we sing out the “Woah Woahs” that build to a crescendo before the entire cast break out into The Greatest Show. By the time the cast floods the ring for the all-out finale the entire tent is pumping.
Whilst the energy is high and the spectacles keep coming, it is the storyline where the show falls short. A seasoned Showman searching for his successor, and finding her in Max, is a very thin thread to weave. Scenes feel more like links between acts than a narrative that builds. It matters less than it should, though, because the production values are excellent. This is the first replica of the London production, and it shows. Over 30,000 hand-applied crystals glint on the costumes. A tight five-piece band and live singers are blended with studio tracks in 5.1 surround. The lighting reaches out over our seats so the whole tent feels lit from within. The circus talent, drawn from Cirque du Soleil, Circa and Gravity & Other Myths alumni among others, is world class.
Come for the spectacle, the songs you already know by heart, and the gasp when the hoop artist lets go. Forgive the story. You will walk back out into the Morphettville night humming, and probably still wondering where those mandarins came from.
Paul Rodda
When: 1 to 29 Nov
Where: Morphettville Racecourse
Bookings: comealiveshow.com.au
