The Circus of Horrors The Night of the Zombie, Grove Theatre Review
The Circus of Horrors
The Night of the Zombie
Grove Theatre, Dunstable
8 November 2014
Reviewed by Sandra Mcghee
As always I was more than happy to have been chosen to review a show at my local theatre situated in Dunstable. When I first saw The Circus of Horrors: The Night of the Zombie advertised I instantly liked the sound of it and was intrigued and interested. My daughter who is 10 had seen a few posters spotted around town and whilst passing one when we were stuck in traffic a few weeks ago asked if we could go and see it, so it was a great pleasure knowing we would be fortunate to see it. In particular I liked the sound of the circus as we had never got around to seeing any. Another thing that appealed in particular to my daughter and myself was in description advertised in brochure was daredevil balancing acts and aerialists were expected. My daughter participates in gymnastics and a member of a trampoline squad so she was very excited and we were both blown away with the standard of all the performers.
Upon arriving in the foyer at The Grove we queued for only a few minutes and collected our tickets from a very welcoming member of staff who remembered my name (despite me not visiting for a while) I was very impressed with this personal service. The bar was so much busier than I expected and all of the guests looked happy to be there and there was instant excitement. There was a variety of aged guests (numerous dressed up in fancy dress with crazy make-up). I was relieved that I spotted at least 4 or 5 other children in the bar area as at first I wondered if my daughter was too young (however I had checked there was no age restriction) and thought what have I let myself in for despite her not showing no fear and previously visited the London Dungeons I didn’t think I had any concerns. Almost immediately she spotted Camp Dracula and they both engaged in instant banter and had their own little audience who started to laugh! I then knew we were in for a great evening’s entertainment and couldn’t wait to take our seats (located in Stalls row D, which were perfect).
It’s no wonder The Circus of Horrors are a popular act and I can see why they made it into the finals of Britain’s Got Talent which they so deserved. Last year the show began a series of dates in London’s West End becoming the first circus to appear in a West End Theatre for 100 years. Luckily the predictions of how long they would last were so wrong as the rumours were they would only last 20 days let alone 20 years. They started their journey in 1995 at Glastonbury Festival when they became an instant hit, touring all over the world including Chile, UK and Japan and made festival appearances with Alice Cooper, Eminem, Oasis, Iron Maiden and many more including many TV appearances including X Factor, Ant & Dec and again many more to mention.
The Night of the Zombie is set in 2020 which illustrates the incarnation of corpse ridden London invaded by a plague of Zombies. The show was very cleverly put together with countless sensational scenes some very shocking (a few times I had to cover my daughters eyes as there were a few naughty scenes), some extremely funny which literally had the entire audience in stiches as were so comical. I will by no means spoilt it for you, all I can say is be prepared to be shocked to another level some scenes so very bizarre. The length of the show was perfect if anything I was slightly disappointed when the second half finished as I could of easily watched for another hour or so, we loved every single second, minute! Highly entertaining. One little thing I would mention is there are a few nudity scenes so not for the feint hearted and some foul language but all in good humour none of the audience was phased with this at all and also plenty of audience participation, be warned with lots of twists. There are sword swallowers, knife throwers, daredevil balancing acts, a demon dwarf (just brilliant) a Guinness World Record holding ‘hairculian’ hair hanging beauty, Sinister Sisters (my favourite), gyrating and fire limboing acrobats and so much more.
Each and every member of the show did an amazing talented job and so obvious they all worked so hard with rehearsals beforehand as were all excellent. I was very impressed with the clever stage and costumes no money was spared, the theatre was a great venue for this show. I for sure will most definitely be booking my entire family to watch The Circus of Horrors when they return again as laughter is guaranteed and such good fun, almost like watching a live horror movie on stage, chilling music, not for the squeamish. Very well directed, would change nothing, totally original!
Value: Extremely good value prices range from around £20 to £24 a ticket.
Rating: 5/5 
The Circus of Horrors: The Night of the Zombie are on Tour 2014 and 2015 see www.circusofhorrors.co.uk.
Grove Theatre, Grove Park, Court Drive, Dunstable, LU5 4GP | Box Office 01582 602080
