PERFORMERS at Great Yarmouth's Hippodrome Circus were left in the dark during their matinee performance on Wednesday as a power cut gripped the seafront.

PERFORMERS at Great Yarmouth's Hippodrome Circus were left in the dark during their matinee performance on Wednesday as a power cut gripped the seafront.

More than 210 properties lost power in the Marine Parade area at about 3.30pm and a further 57 customers were affected at 7pm following a fault with an underground cable.

The packed circus with a full house of 800 people was forced to abandon its afternoon show and cancel the evening performance - the third show to be cancelled in five days.

Circus owner Peter Jay said: “The power went off just before the interval as the Brazilian spring board act were reaching the climax of their performance. We had to cancel Friday night's show because the power went off in the afternoon and we couldn't find out whether it was going to be restored in time.

“This is unacceptable. This is the middle of the season when people need to be making their money.”

The circus has a back-up lighting system although Mr Jay said it was not good enough to continue with the show.

Supplier EDF Energy said power had been restored to most properties by between 9.30pm and midnight. As the Mercury went to press yesterday 31 customers were still without electricity and engineers carrying out repairs.

On Friday a fault with a high voltage underground cable triggered a loss of power to more than 800 properties in the Dickens Avenue area of Yarmouth at about 1.40pm.

Engineers soon restored power to 149 customers and the remaining 656 properties affected were restored later that afternoon.

Some further customers experienced a brief interruption at 1.38pm which lasted two to four minutes.

On Saturday power was interrupted to two properties on King Street, one of which was Marks and Spencers.

A spokesman for Marks and Spencers said: “The Yarmouth store experienced power loss following a power cut affecting parts of the surrounding area. As a result some stock was lost across chilled and frozen sections.”

EDF Energy said power was isolated to two customers in King Street at 1.09am on Saturday so that repairs could be carried out to a piece of substation equipment which had developed a fault. It was restored at 1.29am.

The spokeswoman added: “This was not connected to the interruption to power on Friday which was caused by a fault on an underground cable. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.”