The freakily fantastic, mind-boggling thrillorama that is The Circus of Horrors is returning to Galway with its wild and wonderful brand of hair-raising entertainment and bloodthirsty burlesque. The sensational new show is packed with shocks galore as it whisks audiences off on a whirlwind journey like a bat out of hell into 1927 Berlin; the raucously roaring twenties where we encounter the decadent joys of cabaret and the sinister figure of ‘The Devil Doll’.
“We try to mix up new acts and routines with the ones that have been there before,” declares Circus impressario Dr Haze, speaking from the troupe’s London office. “We still have the sword swallower from two years ago but now he swallows a whole array of different swords, plus an umbrella, believe it or not. We also still have the little guy, Captain Dan, but he has now turned into the master magician Al Bambini and he does amazing things with vacuum cleaners. We have a lady who hangs solely by her hair from the roof of the auditorium and we’ve added an extra twist to that where at one point she hangs by her feet and while she is hanging upside down, batlike, we have another girl who puts her mouth into an iron jaw and she is lifted to the roof of the auditorium suspended from the hair of the girl who is hanging by her feet. It’s unbelievable when you see it and it hasn’t been done anywhere in the world. The whole theme of the show this year is different, it’s based on an evil ventriloquist doll that has come to life and you’re wondering who is the puppetmaster, who is really controlling it, and alongside that there are brilliant and daredevil circus acts all the way through.”
Haze expands on the show’s Berlin setting; “1920s Berlin was a very decadent time and it was an avant-garde time as well in many ways,” he notes. “If you think of the film Cabaret the imagery of that time is great and that really appealed to us. So we create this nightclub called Vampire Vaudeville and the idea is that it’s become run down and isn’t doing too well and its newfound star is the ventriloquist then we come into town and shake it all up. Then we have this character The Devil Doll who impacts psychologically on various performers’ minds and gets them to do things that they shouldn’t be doing but then there is a twist at the end when you discover who the actual puppetmaster really is.”
And what of some of the new acts featured in the show? “We have a new troupe of fantastic acrobats, they do things like skipping over burning ropes,” Haze tells me. “From Mexico we are bringing over a Wolf Boy and I think it is the first time such an act has been seen in Ireland and that’s a real coup for us. We usually find new acts through them coming to us, Circus of Horrors is quite a cool show and a lot of younger circus performers dream of working with us because you’re doing the acts in a totally different way to most circuses, you’re performing to rock music, the audience are going wild like at a rock gig.”
Mention of the Wolf Boy may suggest notions of the old-style circus freak but Haze dispels that idea; “There’s two different ways of looking at it; you’ve got what we would call born freaks and then you have people who turn themselves into freaks,” he explains. “So Captain Dan is a dwarf, Wolf Boy is covered in hair and they’re born freaks who are trying to use what God has given them and turn it into a positive thing and entertain people – not just because of how they look and I would emphasise that, it’s not an ‘elephant man’ scenario. With Circus of Horrors we take people on because of their talent and if they look great as well that’s a bonus. The other side of the coin are performers like Hannibal Helmurto. When I first met him, about 16 years ago, we were playing the Munich Arts Festival and he looked absolutely normal. He’d been working for the tax office, he didn’t have any tattoos and had just one piercing in his ear. He fell in love with the show and kept coming day after day. Then we saw him again 10 years later and he was completely covered head to foot in tattoos, he had his tongue forked like a serpent, he had great big ear gauges so his ears looked huge like an African tribesman. So he had turned himself into a freak.”
It all adds up to a phantasmagorical rollercoaster featuring fangtastic, daredevil and bizarre circus acts from all four corners of the world that promises to have you sitting on the edge of your seat when not falling off them with laughter.
Circus of Horrors are at the Black Box for one night only, on Tuesday, November 6th, and tickets are €28 /€25. The show is for over-12s only.
Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777 and www.tht.ie
