Flea Circus

The flea circus is a performance where flea move or appear to move small props such as a tightrope pole, chariots or carosels.

In the 1700s jewlers made tiny chains to demonstrate their skills and to show how good these were they attached a flea to the end of them.

Later performers made the shows more elaborate and in the 1830s L. Bertolotto travelled Europe and America with his act. This continued through the 1800s and early 1900s with acts performed at fairs and fairgrounds. In many cases the fleas in the acts were replaced with simple trickery such as magnets or hidden mechanisms. There was a decline in performers upto 1960s although acts still existed in Time Square and Bellvue, Manchester, UK. In recent years acts nearly always use trickery rather than real fleas.