Thursday night I took a break from writing fiction and was lucky enough to see west country rockers, Reef, and black country bruisers, Broken Witt Rebels, at the Cheese and Grain in Frome. If you’d like to know what I thought then you can read my review on the impressive Rock ‘n’ Load magazine here. If not, visit the page simply for the energy captured by the great photography, courtesy of my pal, Pacific Curd.
Roll up, roll up, for the greatest show on Earth and below: Dok Haze’s Circus of Horrors is in town. Frome Town to be exact.
I was pleased to see a good cross-section of Frome’s wonderful people waiting in the theatre foyer from Vans and Dolce&Gabbana trainers, a classic monster movies print dress (so cool!) to knitted flowerpot hats and M&S casual daywear.
As people took their seats, Nosferatu crept up and down the aisles silently choosing vibrant victims for his pleasure.
The show burst into life with screaming riffs and heavy drums. Immediately, I thought I was at Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare show (in Detroit, no less). In fact, I read in the Tour Brochure, which I had purchased from a very healthy-looking Zombie girl, that Mr Cooper made a special appearance at one of the COH’s shows – kudos, Mr Haze.
The scene was set for us. After the blood of two virgins (the Sinister Sisters) seeps into London’s rotting plague victims, the dead begin to rise. I heard screams from behind me. I turned and saw a wave of zombies crawling over the heads of the audience. Great touch. Welcome to the Circus of Horrors: The Night of the Zombie!
The hard rock intro was to be the soundtrack for the evening, driving the action on with electrified energy and it suited the performance tremendously as the audience were treated to sword and cutlass swallowing, knife throwing, fire-breathing, hair-hanging feats, aerialists, acrobats, and dancing girls.
The ‘relief’ came from Nosferatu, a camp vampire who fails at card tricks, and Captain Dan who is a rather proud member of the COH. Their crazy antics managed to shock a few members of the audience. (Poor Benji).
And that was the first half.
I thought it was slow to pick up after the interval but it got there especially with the dancing skeletons, and from then on it was a hoot with some great visual displays that made the audience applaud, cheer and gasp.
The climax was like a rock show, and at one point I heard Dok Haze shout at the crowd as if he was Ozzy Ozbourne!
I’ve never known the Memorial Theatre to rock, but it certainly did tonight thanks to the Circus of Horrors and all the talented performers who put on a great show.
Eric Nash 