So as Huw and I got back to the park we were greeted by this guy brandishing a whip. I think he was just trying to be peculiar.
Further into the park we came upon a bunch of younger guys dressed as garbage men. Well, at least the suits looked like garbage men. Orange jumpers and yellow vests. They were practicing their tumbling. Sort of like Mike and I used to do in the backyard only these guys were good at it.
Then we ran into the 9 foot lady, otherwise known as Mrs. Stilts.
When we finally got to where the crowd had assembled this is what we found. Remember, at this point Huw and I still didn't know what was really going on. All we knew is that there was a SHOW!!! about to start and with so many people here to see it we figured it might be good.
While we were waiting for things to start random people were wandering through the crowd, like this man with the red umbrella. He was also very peculiar.
While a random guy with a microphone had started trying to entertain the people with music, this guy was walking around. The MC started singing a strange song entitled "The problem with the weather is the people". It was just a weird song about how people never like the weather. They were singing it in a round and trying to get the crowd to join in. While this was going on the red umbrella man put a 2 litre bottle of water upside down on his umbrella watering everyone around him while he kept dry. He wandered through the crowd soaking everyone who didn't pay attention enough to notice him coming. The red-umbrella man also flirted with a few older ladies as well, even going so far as to duct-tape himself to one of them.
Then, finally, something started. And we had this girl (I think it's a girl) climb up the apparatus in front of us and start doing some trapeze work.
Everything from swinging around to flips and hanging upside down by her ankles.
Then we had some more girls practice their trapeze acts (3 per side) along with a few guys dancing on poles around the grounds. A lot of them apparently were students with one of the girls performing even though she had finals the next day.
After hearing some gasping we turned around and noticed that there was a guy behind us who was walking on a tight rope 15 feet in the air. Turns out there was also another 'ring' on the other side of the park (which I don't have a picture of) with a lady hanging from a hula hoop and doing some more trapeze work.
Then they played a game that I think is the closest thing to Quidditch I'll ever see in real life. (For those who don't know what Quidditich is, it's a game Harry Potter plays on broomsticks). This game was all about 'style'. The players on each team (the crosses and the naughts) had to get a volleyball from one end of the grounds to the other. The reason it was like Quidditch is because most of the people playing were trapeze artists, flying through the air passing the ball from one to another attempting to score on a hoop hanging in the air on the other end of the pitch. They even had a 'slow motion' replay where they showed us how many things were actually going on that we didn't notice at full speed (the acrobats did a lot more flips and other tricks during the slow motion replay).
Before they started the actual game the referee noticed that one team was down one player. But not to worry, the naughts had brought in a ringer. A ringer who was warming up by walking a tight rope above the main tent! It was too far away for me to tell how he got down but I think he actually played in the Quidditch match too.
After the game, out came the fire dancers. I tried to get a good shot with the fire cannons going and all the juggling and fire-martial arts going on, but the photo really leaves a lot to be desired. Luckily I took a video instead and it came out fairly decent:
A higher quality version can be found here (30 MB). At least it should be there once it finishes uploading.
At the end everyone got up for the final curtain call. A set of similarly dressed girls (who had been wandering the crowd at the beginning) were supposed to be holding balloons at different points around the ring. This girl lost hers before they started, but like a trooper stood there with her hand up as if she had a balloon.
To conclude they all let go of the huge white balloons and there was a medium sized fireworks show to cap off the night. All in all, I was very glad we had decided to show up. Even though my legs were incredibly sore from walking all day then standing in one place for an hour and a half.
So it turns out the reason they had this circus here at all is that the park used to be a winter quarters for a traveling circus a long time ago. The circus donated the park to the city as long as the city always allowed it to be use for circus performances. So all the performers were local amateurs circus people who were performing for free to keep the circus alive in the hearts of the citizens of Brighton.
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