From YahooNews: 

Drought order leaves British clowns high and dry

LONDON (AFP) - Circus clowns have fallen foul of a drought order granted to a British utility because of diminishing stocks of water, a number of newspapers reported.

Entertainers from Zippo’s Circus were told they risked heavy fines if they continued to throw up to 20 buckets of the increasingly precious resource over each other in their slapstick “slosh” shows, Saturday’s papers said.

With a hosepipe ban also in place, the funnymen and women will not be able to squirt each other with water from plastic flowers in their buttonholes, either.

The circus is currently pitched in Wallington, southeast England, where the drought order granted to Sutton and East Surrey Water to restrict the “non-essential use” of water comes into force Saturday.

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