Circus of Horrors – The Night of the Zombie

On Friday I went along to shoot some pictures on assignment for Getty Images at the Town Hall in Middlesbrough. I was covering a performance by a bizarre circus act called the Circus of Horrors. I had arranged with the performers to go along a few hours before the main event began to shoot some ‘behind the scenes’ pictures as they got prepared, did their make-up and got ready before going on stage to perform.

After tying in with the venue organisers I met some of the guys and started working. Quietly documenting them as they relaxed and prepared themselves for that nights show.

The Circus of Horrors caught the attention of the country when the performers made it into the finals of Britain’s Got Talent recently and following this they then had a series of dates in London’s West End and were the first circus to appear in a West End theatre for a century.

The latest performance is called – ‘The Night of the Zombie’ – Set in 2020 the show depicts a decrepit and corpse ridden London that is plagued by Zombies. It is a city that is ruled by the undead and the show climaxes in an awesome flaming apocalypse.

The story twists and turns with grisly murders and sensational shocks that are interwoven with some amazing and bizarre circus acts. Sword swallowers, knife throwers, daredevil balancing acts, astounding aerialists, a demon dwarf who does some pretty extreme stuff, a Guinness World Record holding ‘hairculian’ hair hanging woman, the Sinister Sisters and gyrating, fire limboing acrobats all entertained the crowd to the musical accompaniment of ‘The Interceptors from Hell’, a 4-piece rock band who perform throughout the show.

It’s a great show and one thing you don’t often see when you see these performances is just how much hard work goes into setting everything up before the curtain goes up. All the kit and equipment, the props, lighting, sound, instruments and the specialised equipment that they use all has to be unloaded from trucks, set-up and checked ahead of the show and then of course it all has to come down again and be packed away before heading off to the next venue. It’s a relentless routine that takes some serious graft.

So if you get the chance to go along to one of their many venues and see them then I would recommend it. Although it’s kind of an adult themed show so maybe leave the kids at home for this one…..but be quick! As they only have a couple of weeks left on the road from what has been a six month tour. Details of remaining gigs are on their website that you can get to through the link that follows.

So take a look below at some of my work from… The Circus of Horrors

‘BACK-STAGE’