Extinguished

Last Sunday afternoon Seven were scheduled to air an Emmy Award winning mini-series called Fire Within. I was rather busy that weekend and had no time to watch, nor organise someone to record it. So, I resigned myself to go to Big W and buy the DVDs of the series that I've been eyeing off for some time now. Thankfully I did, because I doesn't appear to be on the air this weekend. Hopefully it will return soon.

Fire Within follows the journey of several key cast members of the touring Cirque Du Soleil show Varekai. A behind-the-scenes look at what it is really like to be involved in these amazing shows.

I'm certainly one of the people who reveres these shows, but am also one who has a better perspective than most about the struggle to actually get them up and running. Fire Within focuses mainly on the performers, but does digress into other story lines about the show, like choosing a name and finding a singer when the director hasn't given any indication of what he wants.

For a theatre person, this show is like watching a well shot home video. The struggles, the egos, the potentially show destroying mistakes. I would find it hard to not like this, and the fact that it is all about Cirque is icing on the cake.

If you're a fan of Cirque Du Soleil, this will open your eyes about how the shows are created. For those who aren't, let this be a way for you to see into a world rarely accessible to the general public.