Slava’s Snow Show: Review

Why can’t every show be like Slava’s Snowshow?

Creating a childlike sleeping fantasy of elation and melancholy, played out by fools.

Lots of people, me included, say they hate or fear clowns. But that’s only when those clowns are hiding behind make-up, giving us a face that lulls us into trusting them, and underneath it lies a dark secret – the way life can be, in all its terror and disaster.

But with Slava Polunin’s clowns, it’s different. The make-up doesn’t hide anything. It opens up something ancient and tender. These clowns hold up a mirror, and it can be cruel. But most likely it’s innocent, most likely it’s trying to be brave and happy. They invite us to be silly, reactive and play along, just as much as we play together.

Slava Polunin, the creator of the show in 1993, is one of the world’s most celebrated clowns. Since then, the show has travelled to more than 80 countries, winning countless awards and delighting thousands.

As a spectacle, it can’t be beaten. The set consists of objects from a children’s bedroom turned into magical stories – a ball, a lamp, cobwebs, a duvet and its stuffing, a bed. There are also other elements that may exist in other rooms of a house – a broom, a rope, a dustbin, a swinging ceiling light and a coat stand.

And with these tools at hand, stories are told in vast landscapes and terrains, some of which the audience help to make in a way that doesn’t feel participatory, but the most natural thing to do. Foreboding figures exist with playful ones. There are a troupe of green-jacketed lollopers in worn-out deerstalker hats and unfeasibly long earflaps jutting out horizontally. And one fluffy yellow fellow with red furry shoes and an adorable vibe-this is Assissai.

To understand how you buy into the wonderment so quickly, you have to go and see the show. It is something about how you totally cannot get a handle on a strong narrative thread. You watch instances, you enjoy physical comedy and feel sorrow and joy all at the same time, all together, alone.

The green men shuffle in, ridiculous and weary, while Assissai wobbles through it all with a gentle purpose. There’s no tidy storyline to follow, no neat arc. Just fragments and moments. We watch, we feel, and before we know it, we’ve joined in.

You watch physical comedy. You feel sorrow. You feel cheered. You laugh at the same time as anticipating bittersweet tears. The ensemble shifts height and shape, becoming giants and children all in one breath. They’re tricksters and philosophers, ridiculous and profound.

Slava’s Snowshow has survived for more than thirty years because it’s not really a show about clowns at all. It’s about us. About the tiny foolishness of being human. About the way happiness and grief love each other. It’s about softness, and storms.

At the end, you leave when the moment is right. Until then, the microcosm of the human race is giving a standing ovation by jumping up and down in the circle and stalls; hitting gigantic and colourful balls.

Slava’s Snow Show is at the Opera House Manchester from 22-26 October 2025.