The big top goes extreme

Forget red noses, cute animals and elegant trapeze work, European circus is shocking and explicit. And it's coming here soon. What will children make of it? Nothing at all - they'll be barred. By David Lister

There was a time when the arrival of the Big Top in town signalled nothing more than a week or two of innocent entertainment, courtesy of clowns, elephants and tightrope-walkers. But then, there was a time when the audience consisted mainly of delighted children.

There was a time when the arrival of the Big Top in town signalled nothing more than a week or two of innocent entertainment, courtesy of clowns, elephants and tightrope-walkers. But then, there was a time when the audience consisted mainly of delighted children.

Now, the circus is about to go where it has never gone before, taking the traditional entertainment to shocking and sometimes sickening extremes. And, for the first time, a circus in Britain will have an 18 certificate, with children refused entry.

The sort of stunts being prepared for shows in Britain this year will certainly test the limits of good taste. More significantly, they will also test the laws on entertainment, and could risk local or even national bans.

The first show comes from Archaos, a familiar name on the British circuit, but now with a new and much more aggressive image. The company believes that it is time for the British to give circus a more European definition. According to Archaos's spokesman, "European circuses can be much more intense and challenging spectacles than their British counterparts. They also ask questions about sexuality. It's an approach that will certainly surprise audiences in Britain, and may leave some of them feeling a bit queasy."

Their new show, Epine d'Amour, produced by the Archaos creator Pierrot Bidon, has been running in Marseilles, in a disused abattoir. It is a project that Bidon has worked on for six years. Elements include the performers swimming through seven tons of broken glass; human fireworks, in which fireworks are thrown into a dustbin containing a performer, exploding in his face.

One of the stars of the show is John Kamikaze, who has appeared as a freak act at the Edinburgh Festival. Perhaps wary of causing an outcry – or at least licensing problems – before they've even started selling tickets, Archaos is not yet announcing which British venue will stage its show.

While the Archaos show has humour at its core, it is hard to say the same of another circus extravaganza, which is also set to come here in the near future.

This show, entitled XXX, by the Spanish troupe La Fura dels Baus, does have a prospective venue, the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, west London, run by William Burdett-Coutts, who is also known for running the top Edinburgh Festival comedy venue, the Assembly Rooms. He has invited the Spanish experimental theatre group to mount their show at his London venue; and dates have been pencilled in for the spring. The show, to which under-18s are not allowed entry in Spain, is described as "orgiastic", and will test theatre licensing laws in Britain to the limit.

It will definitely have an 18 certificate over here, too, the first time a circus-style act has banned children, and a very rare example of any live entertainment at a major arts venue banning under-18s.

The show starts with a naked woman crouching on the stage, picking up a pencil between her buttocks. The audience is encouraged to send text messages, which are flashed up on a giant screen. To provoke a reaction, they are also shown a huge filmed close-up of a woman's genitalia and then her anus, with a yellow cloud bursting from it. That is, as they say, just foreplay. The show goes on to include cigarette-smoking vaginas, fellatio, cunnilingus, sodomy, simulated rape and S&M, all represented on stage or performed on screen by porn actors.

La Fura dels Baus is a Catalan group, which had its roots in street theatre. Alex Ollé, a member of its co-operative management structure, has defined the desired audience response by saying: "No one should come out of our show thinking 'that was nice'. There is still refining to do, but we have achieved something essential, which is to leave nobody indifferent."

Part of the show is an enactment of a story in which a dominatrix entices a girl into making a pornographic snuff film. It ends with the girl arranging the gang-rape of her own mother to punish her for giving her a moralistic upbringing.

In one interview, the four actors – two Spaniards, a Cuban and an Argentine – admitted that some scenes are very hard to perform. "We are right at the limit of our compromise as actors. But everything we do is still pretend, still a game," said Edgar Despaigne, the Cuban. Teresa Vallejo, who plays the dominatrix, added: "There were bits that were very difficult to get used to. The final scene with the mother is still heavy-going for me."

Jon Fawcett, the programming manager at the Riverside Studios, says that he prefers to think of the show as having transcended circus to become theatre. But he agrees that La Fura Dels Baus has its origins in circus. He confirmed that it is intended to give the show an 18 certificate, and that it will be the first show at the venue to go before Hammersmith and Fulham Council to ensure that it would not contravene obscenity laws.

La Fura Dels Baus is, he says, regarded in Europe as "popular and challenging". He added: "We have been tracking them for many years. Yes, this piece is particularly provocative and a lot of people would be repulsed by it, but it is an honest treatment of the ideas of a significant, albeit maverick, European writer – the Marquis de Sade. It also tackles voyeurism in the age of the internet, and will be a refreshing challenge to British attitudes, which tend to be both prudish and sex-obsessed, often at the same time.

"XXX has sold out across Europe – in mainstream, often bourgeois theatres, and it will be fascinating to see how it is received in London."

The show could be one of the most controversial circus-based performances since the Jim Rose Circus provoked a mass walk-out at the 1994 Edinburgh Festival, for a show in which a performer hung an iron from his pierced genitals. Indeed, it could make that look tame.

A spokeswoman for Hammersmith & Fulham Council said: "Until we get an application, it is hard for us to comment on the licensing implications. But we would certainly want to know about the content."

At present, the circus community is defending the trend for adult circuses, though there is unease that any circus is to have an 18 certificate.

Charlie Holland, the programme director of The Circus Space, Britain's top training centre for circus artists, said: "I know about La Fura Dels Baus, and I would say that circus is not exclusively a children's entertainment, even though that is how it is seen in Britain. The picture-book image of circus isn't the only one. But people who promote these shows should so with consideration for the audience who buy the tickets. And it would be a sad day if live entertainment has to undergo a classification system in the same way as film."

Gerry Cottle, Britain's best-known circus impresario, believes that the move towards European circus, allied to a move towards more shocking, adult material, will exacerbate an existing problem in British circus – the lack of a new generation of novelty characters to continue the traditions of home-grown circus.

He says: "I've always been keen on new circuses, but I have become a bit worried recently. We need to start concentrating on developing talent over here. We've got no new talent, no crazy characters coming up."

A naked woman who can crouch on the stage and pick up a pencil between her buttocks is probably not what he has in mind.