The Circus Is In Town!

The Royal London Circus is in town again, and is now performing to audiences nightly in Kuala Lumpur till 1st January 2008. Ever since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to see The Royal London Circus. One fine morning, as I was driving to work, I heard Mix FM’s Almost 90s@9 contest (yes, I was still on the road after 9am and I was late for work :P). As soon as I heard the song “Shattered Dreams”, I knew that was the answer and I called up the radio station immediately. Fortunately, I got through on my 1st try and won 2 VIP tickets to The Royal London Circus… yippee!!! (Yes, Sze saved RM150 this time!)


However, we didn’t get to go see the circus for some time as both of us were extremely busy either with work or with our wedding preparations. Then, towards the end of last month, we finally made the trip to Klang to see The Royal London Circus.

The show started with what appeared to be a chubby, Malay-looking ringmaster singing in the style of Pavarotti and backed by a mini circus orchestra, again staffed with local-looking musicians, except that they were not the familiar faces of the local music industry. It turned out that the chubby, singing ringmaster is a Filipino (not sure about the orchestra musicians though).

The 1st circus stunt was the balancing act on 2 giant rotating wheels… it was Sze’s favorite stunt and it culminated with one of the 2 circus performers balancing himself high up on the swinging wheel blindfolded!

There were various acts following that but all of our photos at the beginning were spoilt as “video recording devices” were not allowed and we had to snap the shots discreetly without any flash. Besides, we were also afraid that the camera flashes might momentarily blind the circus performers, especially the trapeze artists and they would fall down from their swings… he he. But actually, that’s what happened – they did fall down a couple of times from their swings high up in the air onto the netting below and one of the falls was during the drumrolled highlight of a 3-turn somersault!

On the other hand, the dog shows were quite enjoyable and funny but the elephant looked pretty sad.





However, there were not that many animals and the acts focused more on human performances instead.




There was also a circus clown and a magician too… cool. The ringmaster and his partner also sang a few songs including “Amigos Para Siempre”. It was one of my personal favorites and I was very impressed with their rendition of the song.

The last stunt of the night was the Sphere of Terror where 5-6 dirt bikes (scramblers) were squeezed inside a giant metal sphere (ball) to be ridden round and round each other in confusing circles.



It was a fitting finale to the circus performances and the evening had been good fun for both Sze and me as we had not been to any circus since our childhood days! Merry Christmas to everyone and best wishes for a very Happy 2008.