Fuerzabruta Running Man

Ask anyone who has been to see Fuerzabruta what it is and watch them struggle to describe it in any tangible way.

It is pure energy, a true spectacle, an attack on the senses, it’s a carnival and a dance, and it’s a full-on beast of a night club.

But while the audience doesn’t come away with a narrative to tell, or a category to slot the show into, they will most likely be, underneath the paper and glitter they end up covered in, pretty exhilarated.

Back at the Roundhouse following its UK debut in 2006, the show packs as much punch as it did when it first amassed a constellation of stars from the critics.

Its creator, Diqui James, has a remarkable mind that boggles when you see the vast and peculiar set pieces that appear out of nowhere and on which the performances are just as surreal.

There is a huge treadmill that sees a man running on, bursting through walls of boxes that fly his direction.

Following that is a vertical sail on which two dancers on either side strive to reach each other while it twists and spins on an axis.

The one that makes even the biggest audience-participation cynics get their arms in the air is when a flexible water tank is brought over the audience’s heads and ethereal, scantily-clad (and utterly gorgeous) girls swirl, dive and belly jump on it, waving and smiling at the audience gazing up at them.

The new addition to the show is a billowing plastic sheet that covers the audience and is blown up, catching us inside it like a snow dome. Performers run over it from above, then abseil through holes in the sheet to pull lucky audience members up with them.

By the end, the Roundhouse is transformed into a carnival. The centre becomes a sweaty mess of dancing teenagers, mums, dads, young couples, and grandparents who get swept up in the infectious mayhem of these Argentinian wonders.

Fuerzabruta is at the Roundhouse for a limited four-week run from December 27 until January 26.