Chessington Zoo opened its circus in 1933, it featured lions, elephants and leopards as well as clowns, acrobatics and skaters. The show was advertised as the ‘most thrilling animal act ever presented’ and featured a ‘wrestling’ show between big cats and man. Newspaper articles show that this did not always go to plan as on the 20th May 1933, it was reported in the Framlingham Weekly News of a trainer being attacked by a lioness, however there was no time for sympathy as he was due to go on for another wrestling show with a male lion shortly after the attack. Hans Brick was one of the animal trainers at Chessington and was regularly seen playing with full grown big cats. The circus big top could hold up to 1600 people and hosted 3 performances per day, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm. In the early 80s, Chessington stopped using animals in their circus, so it became an all human show, in 1987 the big top suffered from major damage from a violent storm and in 1991, the circus closed at Chessington Zoo to make way for a n