Review from: Assembly Hall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 7th August 2026
Expectations ran high for GOM’s Ten Thousand Hours at the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Between the huge success of their previous shows – A Simple Space and Backbone – as well as apparently selling out this show in 2024 and 2025 – and their featured slot at the Assembly Main Hall on the first day of the Festival – the queue stretched around the block.
Ten Thousand Hours does not disappoint. By now GOM has a brand – it’s virtuosic, inventive, and playful. The artists don’t play characters; there is no narrative. We hear their voices and see them laughing together. These are human beings, training and competing and supporting each other to accomplish incredible acrobatic feats.
In the very first segment of Ten Thousand Hours, the tone of the show is set with 2-high and 3-high choreography that is original, impressive, and seems effortlessly smooth. Some of these sequences are truly remarkable, such as a 3-high where the middle artist steps onto another base’s shoulders, still carrying her flyer. Or the 3-high with no hands. Or the sideways fall/dismount, where the stacked acrobats are caught by the other company members. Or the all-female 3-high, walking across the stage. There are endless exciting variations.
The banquine and hand-to-hand work is marvelous. The handstands section features a beautiful moment: an artist handstanding atop a tower of road cases steps his hands forward, plunging towards the stage – and he is caught, inches from the floor, still in a handstand, by his partners.
The most delightful piece in the show is the audience participation segment, where an audience member is assigned to sketch out partner acrobatics shapes that the other artists then try to re-create.
However, the show is not perfect. The “do the warm-up again, but like a breakdancer!” segment seems like just a gag. The artists acting like cats to justify tabletop pyramids is unnecessary. And the lighting and staging of this show isn’t pulling its weight – the red and blue lights don’t seem to add much; if anything, they just make the artists a little harder to see. The glowing neon numbers at the back of the stage, while used effectively a few times, don’t really pack a punch.
Gravity & Other Myths has, by now, proven their powerful ability to entertain and amaze both regular audiences and circus-savvy ones. Their magic is in their game playing and in their real human interaction – such as the moment in this show where everyone is critiquing a 2-high. They have also clearly spent a great deal of time finding partner acrobatics shapes and sequences that dazzle – and there were dozens of “tricks” in this show that I had never seen before. Their originality, and their commitment to working with exceptionally capable acrobats, make this company a lasting force. I expect Ten Thousand Hours to have a long and successful run.
