History of the Hippodrome Circus Great Yarmouth

THE HIPPODROME

The Historic Hippodrome is Britain's only surviving TOTAL Circus Building, built in 1903 by the legendary Circus showman George Gilbert. Throughout the century the intimate arena has played host to an incredible variety of entertainment, from amazing water spectacles and stage variety shows to cinema and cine variety and even wartime use as a military practice shooting range! - Apart from always presenting the very best In Circus, Lloyd George held political rallies here - Lily Langtry sang, Little Titch clowned, Max Miller joked, Houdini escaped. The world's finest clowns and circus personalities performed - ALL experience the Hippodrome's unique atmosphere. Its likely that even Charlie Chaplin performed here as a child actor before finding Fame in America!

For eight weeks each summer the Hippodrome becomes a focus for worldwide circus attention, as artists from around the globe converge in town to appear in Jack and Peter Jay's new Circus production. This year marks the Jay's 27th year as owners, producers and directors of the circus and still presenting the unique water feature with synchronised swimmers, one of 4 still operating in the entire world, the others being in Moscow, Blackpool and the newest show in Las Vegas!

The Unique Hippodrome, known as East Anglia's mini Albert Hall stages many other shows during the year from Rock 'N' Roll, Pop concerts to large scale Opera, from wrestling to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and is available throughout the year for promoters, producers, Filmmakers, photographers and video makers for location shoots.