Quite by surprise a circus came to town, announced by placards in the streets, parking its big top and caravans behind my house on the football field attached to the youth club which holds regular discos at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, awful music blaring from the clubhouse and teenage sweethearts snogging in the long grass like there was no tomorrow.
Along with about 60 excited kids and their mums and dads and grannies and grandpas on a sun-kissed day I went to the second performance having been stirred into action the previous afternoon by a raucous cacophony emanating from the big blue top on the hill.
Perhaps the most positive comment I can make is that it was short, about one hour in total, but that is tempered by paying 150 big ones to get in. I calculated during one of the many interminably dull sections of the show that they'd made about 12,000 big ones out of us, which isn't bad money when all you're going to do is take a poxy dog for a walk round the ring, whip a couple of beautiful white horses to do the same, bring in a mangy goat, drag him round by the horns for a bit, get a horse to kneel, kick the goat's butt so that he RUNS UNDER the horse ... and that was the showpiece circus trick. Nobody clapped. Nobody understood it.
Then, thank god, we had a break and more than a few adults went outside to smoke and get relief from the overwhelming stench of horse, dog and goat crap. It did give me the chance to sneak off but I still had hope there was a spectacular spectacle waiting in the wings, which there wasn't.
Munching popcorn we just about stayed awake for the second act, although one girl did nod off, waking only when one of the 'clowns' came round with their flashing red noses offering every kid in there a sweet from his paper bag ... which I thought was a bit weird ... and it took him 15 minutes to go round to them all and by then gramps in front of me had nodded off too.
An act of magic followed whereby an old geezer, life on the road in trucks and trailers and caravans, came out with a metal contraption followed by a pretty blonde in a swimsuit who miraculously put the old geezer in the metal contraption, closed a door on him, opened the door and he was wrapped in thick chains. In some sort of revengeful act he put her in the metal contraption and shoved a knife thin sheet of metal through her stomach and out the other side, and she still lives, twirling around at the end to show her legs were still attached.
Then the star came on in a kind of 1970s Las Vegas seedy backstreet cabaret lounge singer suit looking as though he'd spent the afternoon on the sauce and he had a big wooden puppet which had a stick stuck to its head that the man was violently jerking up and down in time to the music. Oh man, I haven't laughed so much for a long time and the guy started giving me stern looks.
There was a lengthy silence as we shuffled in our seats awaiting another miracle or bout of comedy before the speakers sparked up with the old geezer informing us that we can go home now and the kids exited looking kind of disappointed.
Along with about 60 excited kids and their mums and dads and grannies and grandpas on a sun-kissed day I went to the second performance having been stirred into action the previous afternoon by a raucous cacophony emanating from the big blue top on the hill.
Perhaps the most positive comment I can make is that it was short, about one hour in total, but that is tempered by paying 150 big ones to get in. I calculated during one of the many interminably dull sections of the show that they'd made about 12,000 big ones out of us, which isn't bad money when all you're going to do is take a poxy dog for a walk round the ring, whip a couple of beautiful white horses to do the same, bring in a mangy goat, drag him round by the horns for a bit, get a horse to kneel, kick the goat's butt so that he RUNS UNDER the horse ... and that was the showpiece circus trick. Nobody clapped. Nobody understood it.
Then, thank god, we had a break and more than a few adults went outside to smoke and get relief from the overwhelming stench of horse, dog and goat crap. It did give me the chance to sneak off but I still had hope there was a spectacular spectacle waiting in the wings, which there wasn't.
Munching popcorn we just about stayed awake for the second act, although one girl did nod off, waking only when one of the 'clowns' came round with their flashing red noses offering every kid in there a sweet from his paper bag ... which I thought was a bit weird ... and it took him 15 minutes to go round to them all and by then gramps in front of me had nodded off too.
An act of magic followed whereby an old geezer, life on the road in trucks and trailers and caravans, came out with a metal contraption followed by a pretty blonde in a swimsuit who miraculously put the old geezer in the metal contraption, closed a door on him, opened the door and he was wrapped in thick chains. In some sort of revengeful act he put her in the metal contraption and shoved a knife thin sheet of metal through her stomach and out the other side, and she still lives, twirling around at the end to show her legs were still attached.
Then the star came on in a kind of 1970s Las Vegas seedy backstreet cabaret lounge singer suit looking as though he'd spent the afternoon on the sauce and he had a big wooden puppet which had a stick stuck to its head that the man was violently jerking up and down in time to the music. Oh man, I haven't laughed so much for a long time and the guy started giving me stern looks.
There was a lengthy silence as we shuffled in our seats awaiting another miracle or bout of comedy before the speakers sparked up with the old geezer informing us that we can go home now and the kids exited looking kind of disappointed.