Soon to make their second appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, The Circus of Horrors are on a mission to make teatime viewing a touch darker. Ringmaster Dr. Haze tells SinZine about their bid to ‘take the extreme to the mainstream’.
Born into a circus family, before running away to join a rock ‘n’ roll band, Circus of Horrors’ ringmaster Dr. Haze found a way to combine the twin passions upon founding the alternative circus almost 16 years ago. Initially touring in a traditional big top, and then later moving to theatre stages, The Circus of Horrors has from the outset combined live rock ‘n’ roll - from Haze’s own group ‘Haze Vs. The X Factor’, with daredevil circus acts - which include sword swallowing, contortion and blade walking, creating a captivating and highly distinctive show.
Over its years on the road, the Circus of Horrors has built up a considerable following, and recently attracted unlikely attention from the producer’s of Britain’s Got Talent, who suggested the troupe audition before the cameras. Unphazed by the ITV staple’s reputation as a place to see desperate hopefuls jump through hoops for the reward of either fame of humiliation, Haze took up the challenge, and a fortnight ago his group received three ‘yeses’ from the show‘s judges, putting them through to the next stage of the competition, and just one step away from the semi-finals.
SinZine spoke to the good Doctor just a couple days before his troupe’s fortunes were due to be announced on air, and learned a little more about his motivations for signing up to the show, and the story behind the Circus of Horrors’ new touring production ‘The Ventriloquist’.
So your appearance Sunday’s show will seal your place in the next stage of the competition - are you feeling quietly confident?
Well the first round, the audience were all up on seats and it didn’t show on telly, but that first round we had a real standing ovation, and that standing ovation went on for about 5 minutes. But we don’t perform again on Sunday, what we have to do on Sunday is just stand in front of the judges. I believe they’ll show part of our previous performance but you don’t actually have to perform again. What they do, they have groups of people and some they’ll tell them they automatically have to go through again, some are automatically out, some have to re-audition and what you’ve got is out of the 10,000 acts it’s down to 200 on Sunday, and then out of that 200, they go down to 40 ,and those 40 they go on to form the semi-finalists, for the live semi-finals. Which start on Monday next week. We’ve had to rehearse a piece for the semi-final just inc case, so we’re ready for it, you can’t be too well prepared!
I know you can’t give too much away at this stage, but should you make it to the semi-finals, can give us a hint of what viewers are in for? Are you really moving the act up a notch at this stage?
Well we’ve got to, I think the good thing about the Circus of Horrors is that we’ve got a lot of very multi-talented people, they don’t just come and do one thing, so consequently whereas a singer will come on and sing a different song and a dancer will probably do a different dance routine we can probably come on and do a whole different one and a half minutes. And it can be one and half minutes of complete mayhem, and that’s what we’re really hoping it’s going to be, eleven of us on stage really going for it, a different song obviously and some brilliant, brilliant acts, some of which have never been seen before anywhere in the world.
So just how did the Circus of Horrors come to figure ‘Britain’s Got Talent - that sounds like a bit of a laugh’? The show is seen very much as a place for new acts to break, whereas the circus is quite established…
Yes it is, and they contacted me and said ‘would you be interested in doing it‘, and when they did that I thought they were referring to different individual acts - like [heavily-modded Circus regular Hannibal Helmurto] Helmurt’s sword swallowing or something, and we weren’t interested in that. We thought, ‘yes he’s a great sword swallower’, and I could compere it and everything, and you know we could probably get a little bit further but we wouldn’t get very far, we’d probably get buzzed a little bit. And we thought we wouldn’t really achieve much by doing that. If you look at some of the individual speciality acts that have been on before - someone like Stevie Starr who got to the semi-final, he didn’t get any further, because I don’t know whether that sort of act would.. I said ‘well no, it’s not really what I’m interested in’, and then they persevered until we came to an agreement that meant we could do a condensed version of the Circus of Horrors, and that’s how it came about. We just thought ‘we’ll go on, 10 million people will see us, the judges may like us, they may not like us, the worst scenario is they’re a bit rude to us!
You’re not the first ’alternative’ act to appear on Britain’s Got Talent, previous series have seen Stevie Starr, Dr Gore and Mr Methane amongst others standing before the judges. Do you think this is the first time we’re seeing an alternative act being treated as a real contender though, rather than being booked for the novelty?
I think we have basically taken the extreme to the mainstream, and I think they are now realizing that stuff can be extreme and alternative and it can still be popular. I think there has been a very weird conception in the UK for a while, that if something is different and alternative then it’s underground, and we are proving that a lot of people like it. And it’s not just alternative people - and there are a lot of alternative people at that anyway. So you know the world is changing.
In encouraging the public to get behind you, you’ve compared the Circus’ position in Britain’s Got Talent to Lordi’s when they set out to conquer Eurovision, and Rage Against The Machine’s at the start of last year’s Christmas single campaign. Although the alternative scene is big, it can’t account for all the votes and sales that have made these campaigns a success. So could it be a public broader frustration with the formulaic and predictable nature of these shows that these acts have, and hopefully now the Circus, give focus to?
Yeah, you’re quite right we’ve had a very. Music in particular has a very familiar format - the way it’s presented, the way it’s done, the boy bands, the girl bands, the lack of real bands, the singers and stuff, it’s basically had the same formula now for quite a few years. And when you see that formula being broken by Lordi or by Rage then I think we’ve got a chance of breaking the formula. We’re doing it a different way; they did it purely on the music, we’re combining the music with daredevil circus skills.
I think what has held alternative acts back in Britain’s Got Talent in the past is that they’ve often presented on, specialized skill, and the format of the show requires there to be a market for the winning act at the end. That’s been there for Diversity, but not say. Stevie Starr.
Yeah, I mean we’ve made 3 albums, they’ve all sold reasonably well and continue to, we play reasonably big venues, it might be the case that we can play slightly bigger venues, and in that case sell more records, it might give us more international appeal. Because although it is Britain’s Got Talent it is widely watched, particularly on YouTube. We’ve had 200,000 hits YouTube in a week and a half and we’ve never had hits like that before. The week we were on we on against Eurovision, when the viewing 10 million was probably slightly less than normal, so you know, this Sunday we would expect more people to see it who perhaps missed the first one and then we’ll really be able to tell. If we get to the semi finals next week then that really is judgement day. If we get beyond the semis we will have broken the mould; whether we win it or not. If you think about it, Stevie Starr or anything alternative has not got beyond the semis. The furthest that anything a bit alternative has got is the semi finals and that’s just been one act. So if we could just like take it just beyond the semi finals and get into the final that would be remarkable. It would be remarkable for the fact that people stood by us and voted for us and it would be remarkable for the fact we’re gaining a new audience and making people realize that the extreme can cross over into the mainstream.
And of course if you did it would be a lovely marker for the Circus of Horrors’ upcoming 16th anniversary.
Yes, we’re nearly coming of age! And to mark that, we’re doing a new show from the autumn onwards called The Ventriloquist, based on an evil ventriloquist’s dummy. We’ve already commissioned the artwork, which Vince Ray has done for us again, and done a fantastic job as always, and the show is set in Berlin in 1926, so between the world wars, a decadent time, a time of caberet and all that. And the main star of our new show, in which we’ll take over a new cabaret and reap terror, will be an evil ventriloquist’s doll, which takes on a life of its own.
So besides seeing a few Circus favourites appearing in a new setting, can we expect anything totally fresh from this show?
Some of the acts are booked, the girl that fires the bow and arrow with her feet is back, we’ve done a hair hanging act before but we’re going to do something that’s never been seen before in the UK, which is a reverse hair hanging act - where she will be hung by her feet and we’re going to do a trapeze act off her hair. Helmurt has got a new line in sword swallowing lined up, and the idea is we’re going to bring some completely new stuff in. So in some cases it’ll be acts that have been there before, some new ones, but the ones that have been there before are going to be amazing new things we’ve devised, and you may even get glimpses of some of them on BGT over the next week.
Finally, any last words of encouragement to SinZine readers to support you in Britain‘s Got Talent?
I’m just hoping that the alternative will let their voice be heard; I know there are enough of them out there because they did it with Rage, they did it with Lordi. I know there’s enough of them out there, so if they just get behind the Circus of Horrors, it’s one last push assuming we get through on Sunday. We’re all crossing our fingers and let’s be honest, we should get through, we got 3 yeses and a standing ovation so it would be very hard for them to say now that they won’t have us. so we’re hoping now that we’ll get through and get beyond Sunday and if we do then we know we’re in the semi finals next week - and if we are what we need is everybody to watch us and vote for us, to prove that the extreme can rule over the mainstream!
www.circusofhorrors.co.uk
