MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
A refreshing take on the circus experience

¡Carpa!
Giffords Circus
Chiswick House, London
LOOSELY themed around the goings-on at fiesta time in a 19th-century Mexican village, ¡Carpa! (Spanish for tent) is delightful circus fare for all the family — funny, cheeky and occasionally spectacular.
One or two of the performers are actually Mexican — including actor Adriana Duch Carvallo, making her debut under canvas as the comically villainous village matriarch Dona Rosa Francisca.
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