The word circus comes from the ancient Greek word meaning ‘ring’. When you think of a circus, you may think of acrobats, clowns, animal trainers and tightrope-walkers. You may also think of them as forming a troupe that travels from place to place, setting up a show in a big top wherever they stop. Many are like this, although some, like the Moscow State Circus, have fixed buildings where they hold their shows.

If you look at a circus as a whole, what you are seeing is an entertainment by highly skilled people. It is like a kind of old Victorian music hall, because the acts are normally accompanied by music. A circus also has a ringmaster, the person who introduces each act and holds the show together. That is similar to the master of ceremonies in a Victorian music hall. It is also similar to modern TV presenters, who host a number of acts in their shows.

So the idea of a circus is very similar to many other kinds of entertainment. But it needs lots of space, so it is not usually able to fit into an ordinary theatre. People like watching a circus occasionally, but they would not go every week, and so there are rarely enough customers to allow a circus to stay in just one place unless they are based in a very big city. That is why many circuses move about.

Nowadays, circuses are fun, gentle places. They can be a bit scary when you see a person blow flames from their mouths or put their head into a lion’s jaws. But we know no harm will come to people or animals. But this was not always so. In the past a circus was commonly a place of great brutality, where acts caused death to the people and animals. In this book we will look at how it all started, and how it changed.