The Circus of Tomorrow honestly seems more like the Circus of Yesterday. Cirque de Demain isn't as trad as Monte Carlo Circus Festival (where they have animal acts and nearly everyone's a minimum fifth-generation circus performer), but you wouldn't call it the cutting edge of the contemporary scene. There are no open applications, with all the contestants invited, and the whole thing has the atmosphere of an industry congratulating itself.

Which isn't to say that it can't be enjoyable. Taking place in the immense – immense – Cirque Phenix tent and hosted by the pallid and florid Calixte de Nigremont, it's like the Eurovision Song Contest: tacky and grand and not at all serious. The acts themselves are generally solid, workmanlike, so long as you don't judge them by standards they never intended to attain, and the Chinese participants can be relied on to break out some jaw-dropping and exquisitely pointless physical feat.

For a full account of a recent edition, see Sideshow's Cirque de Demain feature.