I'VE seen some sights on stage – nudity, sex acts, swearing and drug taking – but the image of a naked dwarf swinging a two-stone bowling ball from a chain wrapped around his little chipolata will now remain with me forever.

What was the dad in the front of the stalls at The Grove thinking by taking his eight or nine-year-old daughter to the X-rated (and for very good reasons) Circus of Horrors that played at the Dunstable venue on Friday night ?

Was he expecting a show called The Day of the Dead to feature cute clowns and jugglers ?

The producers advised in advance that the kitsch rock horror freak show, which starred a collection of alternative circus performers, was strictly for the over 18s unless they were accompanied by a responsible adult.

It was the stuff of nightmares for children and even gave a few adults in the audience as queasy stomach, but you couldn't argue that it wasn't entertaining.

The show itself was a hit or miss affair featuring a bevy of page three blondes in tight corsets, a selection of gymnasts and aerial artistes, the aforesaid dwarf (who also got carried away with the suction hose of a Henry hoover), a vampire, and a certain Mr Hannibal Helmurto.

The heavily tattooed and pierced Mr H made the national press recently when his wife found him in a catatonic state after a bout of self-hypnosis.

But his real party trick (if you don't include sticking a finger through a hole in his septum and have two floating ribs that he invited audiences to feel) is sword-swallowing and he stole the show as the horrified audience watched him consume a collection of blades.

He also put a meat hook through his nose and lifted a block of wood. We watched in ghoulish amazement.

The whole show is fronted by Dr Haze, part singer/ part showman who acts as MC for the night.

At any other time in history The Circus of Horrors would have made a good sideshow act for lovers of the grotesque and bizarre, and you couldn't fault its curiosity value, but a lot of the contortions, wire work and hoop twirling have been done better by others, leaving only the memory of the little naked dwarf and Helmurto the freak to make it a night to remember.