Circus Nights with Archaos

I see there's going to be a radio programme about Archaos (Thursday,9 Sept 11:30 BBC Radio 4).
An anarchic, punk, "never be the same again will the circus"- Circus; its founder, Pierrot Bidon, died earlier this year. There's an exhibition about Archaos from 9-12th September in London. Sadly we's too decrepit to get there at the moment. But you can click here to find out more.

Me and The Old Man went to see Archaos - at Highbury Fields - way back around 1990. I think we saw them a couple of times....

They got plenty of publicity about their juggling with chainsaws. And yes - they did. The Old Man saw the chainsaw juggler drinking quite well in the beer tent prior to chucking the chainsaws about.

Archaos thrived on its dangerous, heavy-metal reputation. Clowns clad in corrugated iron - chased each other with sledge hammers. Trucks and banged up cars filled the tent with diesel and exhaust fumes. A fork-lift trapeze act. (Click here to see with your own eyes, if you don't believe me.) But then I remember a juggler who worked with matchboxes, matches and finaled by lighting a cigarette with a juggled lighted match.

From the grotesque to the delicate. Outlandish, outrageous and dark... They conjured up the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max and Tank Girl. Oh yeah we saw them - and we've got the T-shirts to prove it.

Read more about Archaos by clicking here for an article in the Independent.