Growing up, I guess no one told Tom Comet that you don't play with fire. Instead, he made a career of it, and created Circus Orange, a performance group that, as this new documentary points out, is "pushing the boundaries of pyro-artistry."
That, and Comet loves making homemade flamethrowers, contraptions that lit up the night sky last summer at the Canadian National Exhibition, where Circus Orange performed a scorching combination of pyrotechnics, fire and acrobatics. It was a jaw-dropping show that featured trampoline artists leaping over fire spewed from Comet's flamethrowers, aimed at them by dancers wearing sparkler-spouting helmets. Fire Jammers (Monday, 7 p.m., Discovery) follows Comet and his partner Bex Carney as they put the show together.
From the farm warehouse where a large airplane is welded together to the dance studio, the film catches the crew at their best and their worst: Bad weather means the acrobats can't practise with the fireworks; a main performer is on crutches; and they've got to get Toronto's fire chief to sign off or they'll have to cancel everything. The stress is palpable. When Carney freaks out because Comet is about to launch an explosive her aerialist isn't aware of, he tries somewhat unsuccessfully to soothe her: "It's a 35-foot mine, she'll never notice it!"
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And the show, somehow, goes on.
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ABBA: The Mamma Mia Story (Monday, 10 p.m., Newsworld on The Passionate Eye): How the musical, and then the movie got off the ground, and then the answer (if there is one) to why so many people can't get enough of seventies ABBA songs.