James Thiérrée is an artist who defies categorisation. Circus performer; musician; acrobat; director; choreographer; designer: all have been used to describe the French theatrical enigma, and all would be correct. Perhaps the secret of Thiérrée’s inexhaustible versatility is his unusual up-bringing. His parents, Jean-Baptiste Thierrée and Victoria Chaplin, the daughter of the early cinema comic icon Charlie Chapin, were contemporary circus pioneers. It’s no wonder with show-biz blood of such a high pedigree running through his veins that Thierrée made his first stage appearance, alongside his parents at Le Cirque Imaginaire aged just four years old. His formative years were spent touring with the circus, learning the craft of his parents, and devising the evolution of these techniques to create the circus-infused physical theatre productions that have been a trademark of his oeuvre.

Since 1998 Thierrée has be director of his own company, La Compagnie du Hanneton, who will be returning to the Sydney Festival for the fourth time this week with the beguiling and fantastical Tabac Rouge. The French theatre visionary tells Maxim Boon about his dark fairy tale.

Tabac Rouge will be your fourth visit to the...