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The circus is coming to town, and this one has some edges.

Billed as “The Greatest Show in Hell,” Hellzapoppin and Sideshow Revue brings its rendition of the traditional circus into the modern era to AvantGraden at 411 Westheimer Road in Houston on Dec. 25 for a different kind of holiday spectacle.

Just scanning the list of performers provides a glimpse into the heyday of authentic circus entertainment: from aerialists, acrobats, sword-swallowers and contortionists to a live “Penguin Boy”; “Lady Diabla”; and “Zamora, the Torture King,” the most famous sideshow performer in the world.

“It’s pretty wild,” said Bryce Graves, the show’s founder of the “Torture King,” who brings an ancient performance ritual from India, taking sharpened spokes and pierces them through his tongue, biceps and below his jaw.

The “Penguin Boy” stands three-foot-three with hands where arms would be, two left hands and fused knees, giving him the gait of a penguin.

These performers provide just two examples of the Hellzapoppin tie to early P.T Barnum and circus beginnings.

“We are the largest touring circus side show in the world,” said Graves. “We have roughly 30 performers, but only use six to 10 at a time depending on the type of tour we’re doing.”

Many of these performers have traveled the United States and Europe as sideshow attractions with rock festivals such as Ozzfest, The Pedal to the Metal Tour, Van’s Warped Tour and have been featured on shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Discovery Channel, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, The Learning Channel, Guinness Book of World Records and The National Geographic Channel.

Hellzapoppin brings all these unique entertainers in one “Mothership of Sideshows,” so-called by Graves, who is a Texas native based in Dallas.

The show takes as much from P.T. Barnum as it does from the musical and theatrical traditions of Tom Waits, Iron Maiden, Gwar, the Old Crow Medicine Show, John Hartley, Moulin Rouge and others.

“What I’ve done is taken an old concept of a circus sideshow and tried to make it more of a modern, rock and roll side show. The way I like to describe it as old Iron Maiden/Gwar/Tom Waits-concert-meets sideshow. There is nothing else like it.”

Hellzapoppin prides itself on discovering and honing acts, rather than taking already established, mainstream acts on the road – and always looking for something different.

“I tend to try and seek out people with a certain talent and develop that talent over a period of time,” said Graves.

With the likes of Waits and Iron Maiden and Barnum as inspirations, Hellzapoppin and Sideshow Revue is like a merging of two classes of performance traditions which thrive out of the norm and out of the mainstream and the show’s philosophy stays true to form: from rolling through the U.S. in a giant red radio flyer with its menagerie of “oddballs” and “strange people” to eating exclusively at mom and pop places while on the road.

“It doesn’t get anymore underground than us,” said Graves. “We try and stay away from trendy things. We’re kind of the punk rockers of the underground world.”

Tickets are $10 and guests must be 18 years and older and for more information, visit www.hellzapoppin.com.

YVETTE OROZCO