Jim Rose Circus
| Jim Rose Circus | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Contemporary circus |
| Show type | Sideshow |
| Date of premiere | 1990s |
| Creative team | |
| Jim Rose | Founder |
The Jim Rose Circus is a modern-day version of a circus sideshow. It was founded in Seattle by Jim Rose in the early 1990s. The sideshow came to prominence to an American audience as a second stage show at the 1992 Lollapalooza festival, then called the "Jim Rose Circus Sideshow", although they had made several TV appearances in the UK before this time. Rolling Stone magazine called the show an "absolute must-see act" and USA Today termed Rose's troupe "Lollapalooza's word-of-mouth hit attraction".
After Lollapalooza, in 1993 Jim Rose headlined seven world tours and released a self-titled video on Rick Rubin's American Recordings that quickly became a cult classic.
In 1994, the Jim Rose Circus was chosen to tour with Nine Inch Nails, Pop Will Eat Itself and a then-unknown Marilyn Manson, and later with KoRn and Godsmack. 1998 saw another world tour featuring female sumo wrestling, Mexican transvestite wrestling and chainsaw football. The show landed Rose and troupe in jail in Lubbock, Texas and for four months the show was banned from New Zealand. Rose claimed that it was one of his highest-grossing shows, reportedly netting over 4 million dollars.
Jim Rose was also the top ticket of the Melbourne (Australia), New Zealand and Edinburgh (Scotland) Fringe and Comedy Festivals.
Rose himself performs in between acts, mostly comedy but often stunts as well such as attaching paper currency to his forehead with a staple gun, driving a long nail into his nostril and having darts thrown into his back. During the show's final act, he would escape from a straitjacket. His most outrageous trick followed: he would invite audience members to stand on his head after he had placed it in a shallow crate of broken glass.
Jim Rose and The Enigma were featured in the Season 2 episode of The X-Files, "Humbug"; the episode was set in a community of sideshow and former sideshow workers.
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