Having never been to see the Moscow State Circus before we had no clue what to expect.
Evie kept saying about fitting 10 clowns into one car (too much Dumbo I think) and the boys were wanting lions and elephants. I did try to explain it wasn’t that kind of circus but gave up in the end and thought we would just turn up and they would see exactly what it involved!
We turned up at Raby castle as informed 30 minutes before performance was scheduled to start and were greeted with a huge tent full of candyfloss, popcorn, Slush Puppies, Russian Dolls and memorabilia! Going behind the stalls we then entered the actual circus tent which was surrounded with velvet red seats embroidered with silver numbers, we had pretty good seats which was directly in front of the arena area.
Lights dimmed with two minutes to go and the kids were visibly excited for what was coming!
We all loved the fact there was a story line to the whole performance, of a girl who was sad and given 7 wishes by a kind elderly gentleman. Since a lot of the performances were done in semi darkness with spotlights it was really hard to get decent photographs and I didn’t want to spend most of the time watching through the phone so I will share a few snapshots but they aren’t the best quality so I will apologise now and suggest you visit yourself to get the full effect – it was well worth it!
We were worried how Amelia would react and whether she would sit through the whole performance but she loved every minute! Clapping at the end of each act and even nudging Evie to make sure she was watching and taking it all in! At the end she clapped along with the music and was yelling along with the rest of us!
Hubby did say he thought he has seen the elderly gentleman before and when he performed his trampoline act I could see hubby itching to search his phone for whole routine it was…he was right and it was the lovely Vladimir Georgievsky from Britains Got Talent! We hadn’t known before we went and this was a lovely realisation once we got home!
Exiting through the grounds of Raby Castle was an event in itself! We knew they houses lots of deer and stags but to see them running free was amazing and the stags must have been in protective mode as they leapt across the road in front of the cars in a single bound as if to ward off these big metal machines from their territory! Amazing to see!
We would love to see the Moscow State Circus again with a different routine and will most definitely be back to Raby Castle ( infact they have a food and craft fair coming up in October so we will no doubt visit then!)
XOXO
Debbie
