Circus of Horrors (Established 1995)
Dates
- Existence: Established 1995
Biography
Circus of Horrors was established in 1995 by John Haze aka Dr Haze and Gerry Cottle, influenced by the ground-breaking French Circus Archaos, and made its debut at the Glastonbury music festival that year.
Circus of Horrors brought a new type of spectacle to modern circus away from animal performance and traditional circus acts, employing a mixture of black comedy, rock music, steampunk imagery, burlesque performance and freak and sideshow performance.
Circus of Horrors holds numerous Guinness World Records, including the world's largest custard pie fight, most swords swallowed in one minute, most vampires in the same place at the same time, greatest weight lifted by the hair and the largest human mobile suspended from a crane above the Thames. They were also the first circus to perform in London's West End in over one hundred years and hold the records for performing in the same venue in London for 24 consecutive weeks.
Found in 3 Collections and/or Records:
Circus Friends Association Collection
This collection consists of a large library of books and journals, as well as archival material including posters, programmes, photographs, films, handbills, research material, scrapbooks, original artwork and many other items of ephemera relating to British, Irish and European circuses
Gerry Cottle's Circus, Cottle and Austen and Burnt Stub's Circus Programmes, c1900 - 2001
Gerry Cottle Circus programmes including Circus of Horrors, Cottle and Austen, Cottle-Chipperfield Circus, Continental Berlin Circus, Moscow State Circus and Gerry Cottle's Circus abroad.
Programmes, c1800 - 2019
A collection of mainly British and international circus programmes and some variety and music hall programmes containing circus acts.