As part of the purposefully shocking/sudden/irruptive Surprises programme being presented by the Mayor of London as part of the London 2012 Festival, tomorrow – on Sunday 2 September – Piccadilly Circus and Regents Street will be pedestrianised and overrun with some 48 circus performances taking place across a chain of twelve stages.
It feels a bit like most of UK circus is somewhere in the (enormous) programme — Upswing, Pirates of the Carabina, Gandini Juggling, students of Circus Space and Circomedia, Acrojou, Wired Aerial Theatre, Mattress Circus, etcetera, etcetera — but it's also an opportunity to catch some overseas performers: CirkVOST will set up their gigantic wheel a little way down Regent Street at Waterloo Place in order to show extracts from Epicycle, the stylish French group Collectif AOC are presenting Les Vadrouilles, Les Colporteurs will show Les Etoiles and other acts from their extensive repertoire, and Cie La Coupole (Olivier Roustan and Valerie Salon Roustan) will perform a duet on high wire and swinging trapeze. The finale of the day, taking place at Piccadilly Circus itself, will be Les Studios de Cirque's aerial spectacle Places des Anges.
The stages run from 1-7.30pm, with the finale starting at 8pm. See here for the full programme. Note also that you can watch the finale live here at 8pm GMT+1.