Circus of Shame

Last Friday ‘hm’ bought us tickets to go and see the ‘Circus of Horrors’. Her boss is a groupie, follows them around the country for years, and we decided to go and check it out. I didn’t do any research (first mistake) and I was hoping for a rock show with some circus acts from a slightly naughty, gross point of view.

The theatre was mostly full and it did present some Goths, Punks and Emos, people that you’d most likely see hanging around in Camden Lock market. Don’t get me wrong. I love that area. I used to live close by for 2 years. Before the show began, we started chatting to the girl sitting right behind us. She was dressed in the 60’s fashion. Something that Julianne Moore would wear in ‘Hours’ or ‘Far from Heaven’. She told us that her sister saw the show and she loved it besides the fact that she found some acts gruesome.

So, the show began.

the 'piercing' guy...

I’ll have to try to explain what happened and what we watched…

There was nothing even remotely related to ‘The nightmare before Christmas’ as stated in the IndigO2 website. The first act was of a guy who put a hook through his nose and lifted some weights with it. He then got a bit undressed and revealed two big rings coming out his back. The girl behind us was ecstatic yelling: ‘Oh, he will try a full suspension!!!’ which he did! They lifted him up and made him twirl around, hanging only by these two rings! I knew that something like that would be presented and I dreaded it, as I mentioned in my last post. I was slightly happy however that it was in the beginning and over.

'the amazing acrobatics'

Some of the following acts included a woman hanging from the ceiling by her hair, a pair doing silly dances on a table wearing roller blades, an elastic girl, a guy balancing inside a huge wheel and some other very childishly performed magical tricks like cutting a guy in half, although you could still see him wearing black underneath. All these were performed in what was supposed to be a mental hospital with the leader of the psychotics singing hard rock songs which weren’t very good either.

'the lead singer'

The last drop was the last act before the intermission. There was a midget who was pretending to be Dr. Frankenstein, trying to revive one of the patients. He put on stage two big metallic pillars and had for helpers two women dressed like nurses in very (very) short uniforms. After some very bad acting he created some electric charge between the metallic pillars, producing visible sparks like the one you can see in a ball like this! Yes, that was the main attraction of the act.

That wasn’t the end of it though. Just before reviving the patient which would be the end of the act, he introduced to us two straight long neon lights that he gave to his helpers. He pulled his pants down and made one helper put one light in his eye and the other helper to hold the second light in his bum. The lights were supposed to go off. The one in his eye did flicker a bit but the other one didn’t. They weren’t even capable to pull this off correctly!

Then, it was time for intermission, when the four of us agreed on leaving. I had never left in the middle of a play / movie / show. Ever. But I was more than happy to leave then. Overall, it was the worst thing I have ever seen. It was a mixture of a very bad unprofessional jackass episode, abysmal music and humour destined for antisocial, immature 15-year-olds.

I have to admit that we laughed so much on the way home, for all the wrong reasons though. We just couldn’t believe how bad it was. ‘hm’ was worried about her boss and what kind of feedback she should give! At least we watched ‘Harry Potter’ on Sunday that I generally liked.