As expected, they are not too difficult to find - even on a dull, wet afternoon in Dublin's Meeting House Square. Just follow the stares. The sight of a grinning vampire in battered evening dress and top hat, standing beside a half-naked girl posed serenely inside a large bottle, proves a spectacle curious enough to attract lunchtime pedestrians, regardless of the rain. Haze, the vampire ring-master, issues greetings with the graciousness of a natural host. "It's wonderful to be in the city Bram Stoker grew up in," he sighs, like an awestruck tourist. Then sizing up this reporter's neck, quickly gets down to business. "And what blood group do you belong to?" he asks benignly, sucking his fangs.
The mention of a rare blood type clearly excites him. But ever the professional, he first poses for a photograph with Macabre, his consort, a female vampire possessing the required living dead demeanour. They are joined by a nervy man in a suit. Haze, anxious to achieve a homely effect, produces a knife which he positions at the man's neck. All smile for the camera. Shame about the fake blood dripping down the victim's tie. But never mind, that's show business.
Doktor Haze sees himself as a man with a mission: the consolidation of circus and rock 'n' roll as life partners. The Circus Of Horrors is billed as one of the highlights of this year's festival. Clearly inspired by Pierrot Bidon's dazzling French circus, Archaos, it made its debut at the Glastonbury Festival in 1995, was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival and last year played for 17 weeks at London's Round House theatre. So how did it happen?
Haze assumes the expression of one nominated by a supernatural power, and deliberates. "Well, I was born into it," he says, with an accent sounding closer to South London than Central Europe. "My father belonged to a circus and I was born on the road. We toured all over England. But then when I was still a baby, Dad took off and left my mum and me. He didn't come back to us until I was about 12 and they did try to make a go of it. We moved to London. But my parents only lasted about three weeks and he was off again."
Traditional circus was Haze's life until he became distracted by rock 'n' roll at about 19 and left the circus. "T Rex did it for me. They were seminal. The biggest band in Western Europe. I loved Marc Bolan. What do you mean, you don't know who he is? He was a Giant" - said with emphasis. His tone softens as he adds: "I was also very keen on Gary Glitter."
Rock took over and Haze fronted his own band, Haze Versus The Extractors. "I'd say I became obsessional. The band did gigs at 19 of the 21 university venues in Ireland." By the early 1990s, Haze realised he wanted to merge music and his style of circus. "I went to Gerry Cottle. He's the biggest circus impresario in England and he liked my ideas. I wanted to change the face of circus and bring it as a form into the 1990s."
Surely Archaos already had? "Well, yeah, but building on that by doing something slightly different." The Circus of Horrors is - surprise, surprise - directed by Bidon, the creator of Archaos. At the Glastonbury Festival, the audience was ecstatic. "We were there with Oasis. It was fantastic," he says. "It's a great show. It's wild, non-stop fun - we have motor cyclists on high wires, dancing skeletons and this Hungarian midget, the smallest man in the world. He was very hard to find." Haze stops and laughs at what he has just said. Still, chain saws and flying motor bikes - it all sounds very like Archaos. Haze does not falter. "Well it's true that Archaos have gone before. But there is a difference. Our show has a story, Archaos create a madness - so do we - but ours has a narrative structure." Set in the year 2020 AH (After the Holocaust), the Circus takes place in Sin City, yet another chaotic metropolis on the verge of moral collapse. It is ruled by a crazed man - Doktor Haze, the Master of the City. "I decide to put on this show as a way of distracting the citizens from all the corruption, etc." Many of the routines draw on elements of traditional circus, including acrobats and jugglers performing to what Haze describes as "funky rock 'n' roll". He sings in the show. Eventually, his dictatorship in Sin City is challenged.
The combination of vampires, chain saws, motor bikes, high wire acts and sundry explosions make it all sound fairly violent. Beneath his white make-up Haze registers genteel offence at the suggestion of violence. "Anybody who gets killed in the show isn't dead for good," he says. "They all come back to life. Except for the Air Hostess." Why is she an exception? "She's very irritating. She gets her hands cut off and we run around with them." And then there is the Wasp Boy who swallows swords and a live electric drill. "He's quite special. He came to audition for us. He's Welsh. He has a B.A. in music." The Wasp Boy's act includes swallowing a 240 watt neon tube. "We turn the house lights down and you can see the tube glowing in his stomach." Great.
Are people ever frightened by the show? "Yes a bit, but not terrified. It all moves very quickly." Haze likens his show to a type of Carry On Coffin. "It's two hours of mayhem but it's not really violent. And," he says righteously, "there are no animals. It's not worth the bother of all those protesters." What about the girl in the bottle? "She's sort of a pickled person kept in Doktor Haze's lab. There's something funny about that bottle though," he says. "She's the fifth bottle girl we've had. The other four all became pregnant, one by one. It seems to be a fairly fertile place."
Admitting to an age of 633 years - "vampires live a long time" - he says he is looking forward to performing in Galway's Black Box. "It's quite a small venue, very intimate." From a vampire's point of view, a captive audience is always rewarding.
The Circus of Horrors performs at The Black Box from Wednesday, July 15th to Sunday, July 19th at 7.30 p.m., with a second show on Saturday at 10.30 p.m.
Circus Of Horrors
