Circus Of Horrors-Sunderland Empire

Given that the name of this show is called the Circus of Horrors, I was hoping to see some borderline illegal stage antics that would give me night terrors until my late thirties. The type of show that comes with a warning that pregnant woman and people with weak hearts should not attend and the front three rows may get covered with blood, or possibly something worse.

Instead the one-off performance that occurred at the Sunderland Empire was really just trashy, clichéd, and most importantly pretty tame. Add to this its sound tracked by some awfully irritating camp rock music and the whole thing seems a tad under whelming.

The plot, not that it really matters, revolves around a totally over-the-top rock and roll ringmaster Dr Haze taking us through the show as the lunatics run amok taking over the asylum.

Now there’s the possibility that I have seen one too many internet videos and may be desensitised to things that would make most people feel a bit nauseous, but when the biggest scream of the night from the audience came at the sight of a midget’s penis, surely it isn’t just me.

That isn’t to say this show was a total failure. They’re were some genuinely exciting moments such as a gymnast who performed seemingly unfeasible tasks with a giant hamster wheel and some amazing feats on metal chains way above the ground. Also there
is a good chance that every red-blooded male in the audience took some pleasure from watching the female contortionists.

The problems were that the show didn’t really feature anything that you haven’t seen before superior to this, whether it be a man swinging bricks from his nose piercing, or a woman who can spin many hula hoops at the same time.

The Circus of Horrors has gone through many reincarnations in its time with different acts performing each time so it is possible that this wasn’t the best that it could have been, or has been in the past. It probably will remain a hit on the festival circuit where it began 14 years ago, but tonight sadly the whole thing just felt watered down.