My personal connection to the cirque du soleil begins at the glastonbury festival, the first or second time I attended the festival I remember watching Archaos do their performance. If I remember correctly the performances were saturday and sunday evening but I could be wrong as its about 20 years ago now.

what I do remember about theat particular Archaos performance is the juggling chainsaws, and a car being slid down a tightrope for about a hundred feet. There could also have been an acrobatics routine on a harley davidson balanced on the tightrope, my memory is a bit hazy on that one.

The point of the story is that Archaos introduced me to tis particular style of theatrical rock circus or as they prefer to call it punk circus.

In 2001 I was travelling in new zealand with a friend and arrived in auckland at exactly the same time as cirque du soleil set up their show. This was a major revelation to me , I duly purchased a limited view ticket behind a post - the last ticket available and prepared for the spectacle.

As luck would have it when I took up my seat, the lady next to me offered me a swap to the third row so that she could sit next to her friend. An offer I couldn't refuse! So instead of a cheap limited view seat I now had a third row seat with a gloriously spectacular view.

The show involved the ringmaster , a menacing combination of toastmaster and rocky horror.