One Fell Swoop: By A Thread at Lowry

Like a lot of the best shows, By a Thread is built around a single idea, and the clue’s in the title. 30 metres of rope, two pulleys and seven acrobats are all One Fell Swoop need to create one of the best-reviewed circus performances of this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe.

But the show goes way back. It was first created by the Melbourne circus company a decade ago, and has barely stopped touring since – Australian fringe and regional circuits, then further afield to New Zealand, China, the US, Hong Kong, Canada and South Korea. The UK didn’t get a look until 2025, when a first Edinburgh run sold out so emphatically that the company brought it back this year – to more five-star reviews and the Guardian calling it “soulful circus with a sprinkle of magic”.

What holds the show together isn’t the acrobatics themselves, impressive as the choreography is, but the dynamic the rope forces on its performers: pull on one end, and somebody else is instantly and physically answerable, in a mesmerising negotiation of cause and effect. Confusion, humour, romance and fear all get folded into that mechanism. “The emotion feels real” continues the Guardian review, “and the tone is perfectly judged. Ropes aside, that’s what really elevates these acrobats.”

The dynamics between the performers, One Fell Swoop say, aren’t so different from the relationships anyone has offstage. Trust and risk are a part of them, but so is the potentiality for joy – the possibilities and the thrills that those risks afford. By a Thread, in the company’s words, is an exploration of tension in every sense – physical, emotional, relational.

Over the last decade, this show’s proven itself everywhere but here. Don’t miss it at Lowry, before it heads back to the other side of the world.