A touring circus in the Belarusian city of Vitebsk was so bad that police were called in.
Spectators suspected the Russian performers of being drunk as artistes repeatedly fell off bicycles and jugglers dropped their props.
Exotic beasts, including two apparently plucked from the realms of fantasy, did not show up, reports the BBC.
Posters had promised “jugglers and midgets, fantasy heroes and performing animals”, put on by the Student Association of Kostroma, a city in central Russia.
As well as black bears, crocodiles and monkeys, the animals were supposed to include ‘orcs’ – the evil goblin-like creatures in JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings – and ‘turantons’, which feature in World of Warcraft.
Angry spectators began demanding their money back during the interval and someone called the police. A rumour went around that the performers were drunk.
“How else can you explain that one fell off their bike three times in two minutes?” one spectator told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The administrator of the circus, Yekaterina Kudasheva, reportedly claimed some of the promised animals had “got stuck at customs” or “were outside Moscow”.
Igor Kalmuk, director of Vitebsk’s palace of sport where the circus performed, said tickets would be refunded. His lawyers were working to recover the money from the circus.
A Belarussian police spokesman said an investigation was under way into whether a crime had been committed.
(Above picture is a ‘related image’)
Via: orange.co.uk Image: Salvatore Vuono/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
