Aerialist by Rebecca Truman - Book Review

Rebecca Truman is the Grande Dame of aerial. “Cut me in half and I will have aerialist written all the way through,” she writes in this engrossing memoir.

In 1988, Truman founded Skinning the Cat, a pioneering all-woman trapeze troupe that performed principally at outdoor events throughout Britain and Europe, but also in circus tents and theatres. Truman was star, costumer, artistic director, rigger, truck driver... in fact, she did pretty much everything. Her reluctance or inability to delegate responsibility led to an punishing schedule that eventually brought her to the point of breakdown.

“My years as an aerialist are divided into before and after the falls,” she writes on the first page. “Those accidents changed everything. Before the falls I was running wild and fulfilling my fantasies. Afterwards, it became all too real.”

The Silver Tree rig

When Truman’s colleague Lou plunges head-first to a concrete floor, the dangers of trapeze are brought violently home to the reader. Was Lou’s accident Truman’s responsibility for running an un-funded company too close to the brink of exhaustion? When Truman subsequently breaks an ankle (that never heals properly) was it her fault for bringing a still-recovering Lou back to work too soon, or for not training her sufficiently on the lunge that would have prevented Truman’s accident?

Those are the questions that haunt her as company leader. But the show always goes on. Forced to hobble on stage on crutches, Truman creates a character that makes the crutch part of her act. In the air, the trapeze frees her from her disability.

Everyone in the circus has a colourful story to tell, but few can tell their own tale as well as Truman. In this gripping journey into the life and mind of a trapeze artist, Truman writes with all the evocative colour and underlying precision of the shows she describes

With a novelist’s eye for detail, she brilliantly evokes the glitter and grit of her surroundings at art school, in training gyms, in lorries and caravans, and freezing cold offices in derelict former woollen mills.

For students of the trapeze, Aerialist is essential reading. There’s an insider’s manual worth of detail on every aspect of how to run and rig a show, down to how to remove a cobblestone from a town square in order to drive in a stake to anchor the rig - or, if that doesn’t work, anchor it from a builder’s skip.

Chameleon rig

But this is also the story of a life. From a bohemian childhood scarred by sexual abuse by her grandfather, and the death of her father when she was young, to the nervous breakdown when all those unresolved issues eventually caught up with her, Truman reveals how her career on the trapeze was driven by the desire to escape.

Her narrative is broken up and enriched by the accounts of her mother, company members and, memorably, Zippos founder Martin Burton who recalls asking the Arts Council for funding in the days when circus wasn’t recognised as an art form. Sitting in opulent offices full of furniture he reckoned was worth more than his entire circus, he was told, “If we had any money we’d give it to you.”

Since they claimed not to have the money, he decided to steal the reception desk - a plan that failed when he couldn’t get it through the revolving doors.

Many years later, when Burton was appointed chairman of the Arts Council's Circus Advisory Committee, he told them, “You obviously don’t remember the last time I was here.” “Yes we do,” they said, “which is why the desk is screwed down.”

The text is also peppered with information boxes that provide a glossary of trapeze moves and equipment - Skinning the Cat takes its name from an aerial manoeuvre - plus some poems by Truman that offer insights into an aerialist’s connection to her work that mere prose couldn’t quite capture.

It all adds up to a thrilling read that sits with the best circus memoirs, such as Nell Gifford’s Gifford’s Circus - The First Ten Years (and Josser, written as Nell Stroud) and Gerry Cottle’s Confessions of a Showman.

Click here to order Aerialist by Rebecca Truman from Amazon.

See also: 10 Books for Circus250!

Book Review: Big Top Typewriter by David Lewis Hammarstrom

Here's a book with glue on the cover... 

I couldn't put it down! 

Click here to read my review.

Click here to buy Big Top Typewriter from Amazon

A Pictorial History of Gerry Cottle's Circus and The Posters of Billy Smart's Circus

The Wells, Somerset postmark meant the sturdy package could only have come from one man: Britain's most legendary living showman, Gerry Cottle. And what a treat it was to open the jiffy bag and pull out A World of Circus - A Pictorial History of Gerry Cottle's Circus by ace photographer Andrew Payne.

This is Volume 2 and takes us from 1991 to 2015. The A4-size hardback is stuffed with glorious colour photographs from in the ring, to backstage, the transport and shots of the big top being built up and pulled down; plus hundreds of fabulous circus posters.

All Gerry's ventures from the past 25 years are here: the Moscow State Circus, Circus of Horrors, Cottle and Austin, Wookey Hole caves and theme park, the recent Wow! and Turbo shows - forming a fantastic visual journey with a year-by-year written account of the shows.

It's a book every circus fan will enjoy, although the Cottle story is far from over.

Slipped into the cover of my copy was a photocopied list of dates for Gerry's latest venture, Gerry Cottle's Electric Circus, which begins its 2016 tour on Southsea Common, July 2.

For more on Gerry Cottle, click here.

And if you like the new Gerry Cottle book, you'll also enjoy The Posters of Billy Smart's Circus by Steven B Richley. Before Cottle, Billy Smart was the showman who's name came to mind in Britain whenever the word circus was mentioned, and the Smart name is still synonymous with the big top.

2016 is the 70th anniversary of Smart's first circus, and this is another A4 hardback, beautifully printed and positively overflowing with amazing circus art that traces Smart's history through the years.

The Smart name lives on, and it was recently my pleasure to interview the Guv'nor's granddaughter, Yasmine Smart for this piece in the Daily Telegraph in which she recalled growing up in Britain's most famous circus. I hope you can download the image and blow it up large enough to read.

UPDATE September 2016: Just heard that The Posters of Billy Smart's Circus is SOLD OUT - although a reprint is scheduled for 2018, to mark the 250th anniversary of Philip Astley's first circus. In the meantime, Steven B Richley's next book, Sir Robert Fossetts Circus - The Definitive Visual History, will be out in November. More details here. 

Gerry Cottle, left, with Circus Mania
author Douglas McPherson
as pictured in The Stage.

Saving Anne the Elephant by Claire Ellicott - Book Review.

Bull-hook (noun) A pointy stick used by animal rights activists to bash circuses and prod the consciences of fans.

It was largely local bans of the bull-hook, ankus or elephant goad that led Ringling to retire its iconic elephant parade. Without the guiding tool, which has been used by Indian mahouts for thousands of years, it would be impossible for the circus to safely control its elephants in the street or circus ring, thus making it untenable for the show to visit major cities such as Los Angeles.

Or would it?

I recently watched some Golden Age footage of Britain’s Bobby Roberts working his elephants at the height of his fame. It was an exciting, fast moving act. The elephants ran around the ring, sat on tubs with their forelegs in the air, laid down in perfect choreography and performed headstands... all the things circus elephants are famous for doing.

Bobby and Anne
Look ma, no bull-hook.

Yet Roberts says he has never used or even owned a bull-hook in his life. His control of his herd, which he worked from their infancy - when he himself was just a lad - was entirely with his voice.

“I always said if you couldn’t hold it (the elephant) with your tongue, you couldn’t handle them,” said Bobby. “When I shouted, that was enough.”

The only tools he used were a whip (for cracking, not hitting the elephants) and a walking stick that the lead elephant would hold in its trunk when he led his parade, marching trunk to tail, from railway station to circus ground.

That’s one of the surprising details to emerge from Claire Ellicott’s new book, Saving Anne the Elephant - The True Story of The Last British Circus Elephant.

It was, of course, undercover film of Anne being hit by Romanian groom Nicolae Nitu that led to the closure of Bobby Roberts Super Circus after a media outcry in 2011. The case led to Lord Taylor announcing a ban on wild animals in UK circuses, although the legislation has yet to be introduced.

Click here to read about my part
in the BBC documentary The Last Circus Elephant

There’s no getting away from the fact that Ellicott’s book is part of the ongoing campaign for a ban - and many fans and circus industry insiders won't like it for that reason.

It is, however, an important record of a landmark case and in attempting to untangle the complex issues involved, Ellicott includes plenty that the animal rights groups that protested Roberts' circus won't like either.

Ellicott was one of the reporters that originally broke the story of Anne in the Daily Mail. The paper campaigned and fundraised to get the elderly Anne moved from the circus to Longleat Safari Park and, on the surface, Saving Anne plays to the expectations of readers who want a clear cut story of an abused animal given a happy ending.

Ellicott takes the view “it is now almost universally agreed on that elephants shouldn’t perform in circuses.” She heavily lays on the “terrible suffering” of Anne at the hands of Nitu at a time in the twilight of her career when, as the last survivor of Bobby’s herd, the arthritis-stricken elephant was too old to perform and the ageing Roberts was himself too ill to personally care for her.

A lot of space is given to the views of Jan Creamer and Tim Phillips, the husband and wife founders of Animal Defenders International who spent 15 years trying to infiltrate Roberts’ circus before obtaining the undercover footage. Further anti-circus opinion is provided by Dr Ros Clubb of the RSPCA and Professor Stephen Harris, the latter a long term opponent of circuses who is currently heading a study of circus animals on behalf of the Welsh government (Read more about that here).

But Ellicott's concise, journalistic book also looks at the story from the point of view of the Roberts family, and Roberts is portrayed perhaps surprisingly sympathetically as a "victim of circumstances."

It was Ellicott who first showed ADI’s video to Bobby and his wife Moira. She saw their reaction first hand - they were as disgusted by Nitu’s actions as anyone else. She clearly warmed to the couple’s sincerity and devotes two chapters to an interview with the couple carried out especially for this book.

As the author writes, “It’s hard not to be fascinated by the Robertses lives.”

Anne at Longleat

The most compelling chapter relates the history of the circus family’s illustrious lineage and glory days; Anne’s meetings with the Queen, Princess Anne and other celebrities; and Bobby’s romance with Moira, the fairground girl who ran away with the circus. In their early days the couple had a western act and Bobby accidentally shot off the finger on which she wore her wedding ring. Moira hid the injury from both Bobby and the audience and finished the act.

Back in the present, Ellicott airs the Robertses' belief that they were set up: that Nitu was paid to attack Anne; that it was suspicious that he never normally wore a hat, only in the video to hide his face, as if he knew he was being filmed. That he conveniently disappeared the morning the news broke, despite speaking no English and having no money as he hadn’t been paid.

It’s also suggested he hit Anne with a plastic pitchfork and that the thwack of a metal bar was overdubbed - a theory consistent with the observation that the noise was “almost the only sound on the video” - as well as with Anne’s minimal reaction to the blows and subsequent lack of marks on her body.

The truth about Nitu may never be known as animal cruelty is deemed too minor an offence to extradite him from Romania, where he fled to.

Bobby took the fall for employing a keeper who betrayed his trust and Ellicott stresses that there's no evidence he was personally cruel or knew what Nitu was doing.

The book also makes clear that Anne wasn’t seized from the Robertses; they gave her away voluntarily, and had in fact been looking into her retirement for a few years, but sanctuaries are hard to find in the UK and Anne was too frail to fly to America.

YouTube footage of Anne leaving the circus HQ.

When Anne moved to Longleat, Bobby walked her into the transporter  (This can be viewed on YouTube. With not a bull-hook in sight he leads her by the trunk with his hands). He was perplexed when her new owners wouldn’t walk her out without chaining her legs together. He was also apprehensive of her new keepers’ bull-hooks - it was the first time Anne had seen such an instrument.

Anne looks in much better condition in the video than she is described by the animal rights lobby. One of the new keepers in fact angered the animal rights groups by saying on TV “Hats off to Bobby” for getting Europe’s oldest elephant to such an advanced aged (around 60-years-old) in such good shape. The safari park depended on Roberts showing them how to look after Anne in her first few days there.

The move to Longleat was, in fact, a “slap in the face” to the circus-hating ADI, as it had been founded by the Chipperfield circus family.

It’s a shame Ellicott ultimately supports a ban on the grounds of changing times, and that she didn’t speak to more supporters of animals in the circus. After pages of anti-circus rhetoric by Ros Clubb and Stephen Harris, a couple of short quotes from Martin Lacey Sr and Chris Barltrop are taken from old Daily Mail articles.

My Daily Telegraph interview
with Thomas Chipperfield.

Thomas Chipperfield is however described as “the most interesting defender of circus animals” and some of his “fascinating insights” into training are quoted from the interview I did with him in the Daily Telegraph.

Elephant osteopath Tony Nevin, meanwhile, treated Anne while she was travelling with the circus in 2007 and comments that she was mentally more content than most zoo elephants, which he attributes to her varied life: “She got to swim in the sea, go on beaches, go across moorland. All sorts of stuff she’s done over the years. Then you look at most zoo elephants and they’re plodding around the same paddock.”

Ultimately, Anne is portrayed as happy in her purpose-built £1.2 million new home where she listens to Classic FM, rolls in the sand and eats wine gums “just like any old lady.”

Bobby, meanwhile, is labelled  "a misunderstood relic of a past era who had the best intentions," - a man who loved his animals and couldn't understand why what was acceptable 30 years ago was no longer accepted today.

But was he actually ahead of his time, a genuine elephant whisperer who needed no bull-hook to command his herd, just his voice and a bond built up in a lifetime?

Perhaps there are more out there like him, or will be, who could one day take elephants back into Los Angeles regardless of a ban on the bull-hook.

Saving Anne the Elephant by Claire Ellicott is published by John Blake and available from Amazon.








Further reading: For more on the bull-hook, click here to read Ringling Elephants and the Ankus - Is it Time to Let Circuses off the Hook?

Love in the Elephant Tent by Kathleen Cremonesi

When Kathleen Cremonesi set off on a back-packing tour of Europe in her twenties, she didn't dream she would end up joining a circus, riding elephants, swimming with sharks and falling for a handsome Italian elephant keeper. In the following interview, which originally appeared in My Weekly, she tells me about her big top love story.


"Riding an elephant in a circus was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. There was no rehearsal. My only instructions were, “Hold on and do what the other girls do!”

As we bounced through the velvet curtains into the spotlights, with all the trumpets and applause, it was hard to pay attention to what everyone else was doing. With pink beads popping from my costume and Raya the elephant’s sandpaper hide and quill-like hairs shredding my fishnets, it was all I could do not to fall off!

Luckily Raya knew her routine well. As she danced and twirled, it was like being on a roller-coaster that wasn’t on a track. I had no idea which way she was going or what she was going to do.

When Marilyn Monroe
joined the circus!

When the 15-minute act was over, I couldn’t feel my fingers, I couldn’t feel my thighs, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face!

Running away with a circus wasn’t an ambition of mine when I set off on a back-packing tour of Europe in my early 20s. Purely by chance, I met up with some street performers in Amsterdam and we decided to busk our way down to Spain.

One day, the juggler saw a sign for a circus. He decided to join and asked me to go along to translate. As it turned out, he only stayed a couple of days. His circus dream ended when an elephant stomped on his clubs and crushed them.

I joined the show as a dancer. The reason was because I’d fallen in love with Stefano, the handsome young Italian who looked after the elephants.

I was attracted to him from the moment I first saw him in the ring. The spotlight was on the presenter and Stefano was in the background, walking beside the elephants as they performed, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

We were introduced after the show because he was the only one there who could speak English, and hit it off straight away.

It was the first time I’d been in love and I was taken with everything about him, from his looks to his great accent.

He seemed so daring with those enormous animals - in control and at the same time so compassionate and gentle with them. It was a very heady mix.

Stefano and I fell in love very quickly, although as we travelled through Spain and Italy our work in the circus left only stolen moments for us to be together.

When I wasn’t dancing or riding an elephant, my job was preparing dinner for the other animals, including a llama, buffalo, antelope and emus. My favourite was Baros the giraffe, who was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.

Jumbo - the most famous circus animal ever!
So famous they named a jet and hotdog
after him! (Really! Jumbo wasn't a
word before Jumbo!)

Among the colourful human characters were the tiger trainer who proudly showed his scars to everyone he met, and Moira Orfei, the famous and fearsome circus matriarch who would fine you if you hung your washing up in public - you had to hide it in the back of a lorry.

One day, the boss decided I should ride an ostrich around the ring while dressed as a leprechaun. Two men held the huge bird steady while I climbed on - and we were off! It was like riding a 300lb chicken, with me hanging on for dear life! Unfortunately they forgot to tell me how to dismount and as we charged out of the big top, I could only fall backwards into the dirt.

The scariest thing I did was swim twice daily in a tank with two sharks - one of them seven and a half feet long and the other nine. But at that time in my life I was chasing adventure and once I got over my initial fear it was exhilarating.

The most dangerous job in the circus was Stefano’s: working with the elephants. When you first meet them, they don’t know how you’re going to treat them, so they test you and make sure you know how powerful they are.

When Stefano first joined the circus, he was bending over a bale of hay and an elephant whacked her trunk across his back so hard he still has the injury.

Me and the Elephant!
Circus Mania author Douglas McPherson
meets one of Britain's last circus elephants.

Another time, the head trainer looked away for ten seconds. An elephant grabbed Stefano and pulled him beneath her. He saw her foot above his head.

The trainer looked back, called the elephant’s name and she stopped. Another few seconds and she might have killed him. But it didn’t deter Stefano. He loved the elephants and worked hard until he won their respect and formed a very special relationship with them.

Elephants have a presence that’s humbling to be around. They look at you with such intelligence that it’s like they can see through any facade you put up.

I’ll always be grateful for my big top adventure. It was a coming of age experience in which I went from being very free-spirited and independent to learning how to be a part of something larger than myself. I also met the love of my life there.

Twenty years later, Stefano and I run a business repairing espresso machines. We live and work together 24 hours a day and I don’t think we’d have the great relationship we do if it hadn’t been for our circus days."

Love in the Elephant Tent by Kathleen Cremonesi is available from Amazon.co.uk with a poportion of the proceeds going to the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand and the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee.

Book review: When Clowns Attack by Chuck Sambuchino

If you’re planning a trip to sunny Lowestoft at the end of the month, when clowns from all over the world are descending on the seaside resort for Clown Gathering UK (click here to read all about it) then you might want to pack this handy little book alongside your bucket and spade: When Clowns Attack - A Survival Guide by Chuck Sambuchino.

A lot of people are afraid of clowns. And with good reason, according to Chuck, the founder of Red Nose Alert.

Consider: they hide their identities behind impenetrable make-up and false names like Happy, Fuzzy, Sunshine, Sniff and Giggles - nicknames earned by their addiction to ecstasy, weed, LSD, cocaine and laughing gas, respectively.

They’re impervious to pain, whether its a giant mallet to the head, a pie tin in the face or a fire extinguisher blast down the trousers. That’s not slapstick, says Chuck, it’s borderline super powers.

Their baggy pants could be hiding anything from a baseball bat to a bazooka. And, worst of all, they’re above the law. If they want to whack you with a rubber chicken or give you an over-the-head wedgie, they’ll just do it!

They're coming to get you!
Click here to read about
Britain's real life
clown crime wave.

But clowns aren’t just individual nuisances in Sambuchino’s book, they’re an organised menace that will abduct your children to swell their big-shoed ranks and ultimately seek to take over the world and impose Fools Rule on the rest of us.

Until that day comes, look out for individual attempts to steal your wallet, your life or your sanity.

The book lists some danger zones to avoid. The circus is an obvious one (“Just don’t f***ing go!”). Also, anywhere called Funhouse. Closed amusement parks are the most dangerous of all. That’s where the most deranged homeless clowns congregate, and where the clowns are said to bury their dead.

But what should you do when clowns attack?

If you find yourself being chased by a clown posse, throw a banana skin in their path. Clown Law dictates at least one of them will have to slip on it and hopefully take the rest down like skittles.

If any are still chasing you, try throwing an imaginary ball high in the air and shout “Catch!” Again, Clown Law commands the funny fellows will have to stand around trying to catch the invisible object.

Running upstairs is another good choice. Those outsize boots make stairs a challenge for bozos.

Sambouchino also offers some tips for spotting a plain clothes clown. If your new friend strikes you as a bit suspicious, try a word association test. Say “Big,” and if he replies “Top,” “Nose” or “Shoes,” you’re in trouble. Say “Balloon” and if he answers “Animals” - start running!

There’s safety in numbers, so if you’re worried about growing numbers of clowns in your neighbourhood, ally yourself with Peta activists - animal rights supporters are the sworn enemies of the circus. Also make friends with mimes. For some reason, mimes are apparently another sworn enemy of clowns, and if it comes to a clown raid on your home, a squad of the silent ninjas are the best people to have on your side.

This is a silly book, of course - a bit like those guides to surviving a zombie apocalypse. I mean, clowns are harmless bringers of joy, aren’t they? They wouldn’t turn on us... er, would they? Surely they don’t pose the same threat to our civilisation as a plague of zombies. But then again... how many zombies have you ever seen in real life? But there are an awful lot of clowns around, aren’t there?

Click here to buy When Clowns Attack from Amazon.

And click here for the History of Scary Clowns!

The Guv'nor, Billy Smart

This fine portrait of arguably Britain's most famous circus owner, Billy Smart, was painted by Terence Cuneo and appears in Steven B Richley's fabulous new book, The Posters of Billy Smart's Circus. The book can be purchased from Double Crown Books for £34.99 including postage. Click here for details.

More on this soon.

One of the posters (also used on the cover) in
The Poster of Billy Smarts Circus
by Steven B Richley

How to write a circus book

Ever been told you should write your life story? I expect many circus people have, and many have done so. But if a book is next on your ‘to do’ list as a showman or performer, how best to go about it? Former promoter of the Greatest Show on Earth, Jamie MacVicar wrote The Advance Man about his experiences. In the following article, which appeared originally appeared in Writers Forum, he shares his tips for a successful memoir.


Conversing with Jamie MacVicar after reading The Advance Man feels odd, like meeting your favourite fictional character. Because MacVicar’s adventures promoting the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus - the self-proclaimed Greatest Show on Earth - in the early 70s read less like a memoir than a novel.

Unfolding hour by hour, scene by scene, conversation by conversation, the 650-page narrative gives us a real sense of sitting in offices as advertising deals are hammered out; backstage as unsold tickets are counted; and in “beyond seedy” motel rooms where the pressure builds and eventually takes its toll on a young man thrust into a high-stakes world.

“To write a book you have to be passionate and objective for a long, long time, so you better have something compelling to say,” says MacVicar, who’s book was a finalist for the Marsfield Prize, an American award for arts writing. “Very few people have held the job of circus promoter and to my knowledge no one had ever written a book about it. What I wanted to do in The Advance Man that I hadn’t seen done before was to teach a craft - the marketing of live entertainment - while somehow blending it seamlessly into the personal story. Since most memoirs are reflective, looking back at past events, I decided to write it in the present. I wanted the reader to experience events exactly as I had.”

To create that sense of immediacy, MacVicar advises the aspiring memoirist to use all five senses in their writing: taste, sight, sound, touch and smell.

“Detail makes the reader feel as though they are there,” he explains. “Why just drive across the bridge when you can drive past ‘a little girl sitting on a rail selling worms for 35 cents a box.’ I try to strip down descriptive elements to one or two at most - a sidewalk lifted by an oak tree, a man in a button-down sweater - just enough to trigger the reader’s imagination. It then becomes their story, and will stay with them.”

Asked whether the wealth of detail in The Advance Man stems from a good memory or whether a memoirist is permitted some creative license to fill in the gaps, MacVicar says, “I’m amazed at how much I remembered when I transported myself back in time, heightened I’m sure by the intensity of the period. The important things stay with us.

“I believe you can add colour to evoke a mood - ‘A tractor rumbled by in a swirl of dust, the trees looked barren against the grey sky’ - and you can guess at irrelevant details, like did I sell 500 or 600 tickets at that show twenty years ago?

“But the events and dialogue should be to the best of your recollection, and any historical details should be as chronicled. Our memories are faulty and we can be forgiven for that, but not for a lack of ethics, honest intent and due diligence.”

Although a memoir is by its nature drawn from personal experience, MacVicar’s book is notable for detailed passages on the history of the circus he worked for and the parts of America he visited.

“History and surrounding material that evoke the times give the story depth, and that makes the narrative far richer,” he says. “Context also renders a greater understanding of the actions and decisions of the protagonists. More than most books, a memoir gives the reader an opportunity to reflect on their own lives and what they might have done under similar circumstances.”

To aid his research, he hired a history graduate from his local university who uncovered “golden nuggets” of information, from the crops grown in Ohio during his time there, to a thorough biography of Gargantua, a famed circus gorilla. The author also sought the input of other people in the tale.

“I flew to Savannah, Georgia, and interviewed the head of the advertising agency I’d worked with twenty years earlier. He gave me perspectives and background material about Savannah that were priceless - things I never knew at the time.

“I also sent the manuscript to two of the main characters in the book as well as to the attorney for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, giving them three months to respond. My purpose was twofold: to discover any inaccuracies and to give them a chance to express any concerns before the book was published.”

MacVicar also hired a copy editor and content editor. The former would circle words in red ink with admonitions such as “You’ve used this word four times.” The latter would slash through entire scenes, saying, “This doesn’t move the plot forward.”

“They greatly improved the manuscript, tightening and streamlining the prose while teaching me what to look for myself,” say the author.

According to MacVicar, it’s becoming common for writers to hire their own editors, in America at least: “Agents will often insist on it before presenting your work.” Self-publishing writers are definitely encouraged to employ a professional editor, although MacVicar cautions, “Editors have different approaches. Not all are a good match. I advise asking two or three to do a chapter before deciding who is right for you.”

The Advance Man took eleven years to write, which is about four times longer than the period it describes. Editing and finding a publisher took another four years, and publisher Bear Manor Media took a further two years to bring the book to market.

MacVicar had to fit writing around his day job of running a graphic design firm. But while he would have preferred to complete the book more quickly, he urges all scribes to be patient with the writing process.

“Don’t look at the project as a whole - it’s too overwhelming. All you have to write today is one scene. Take your time. Fame and fortune are ephemeral. Pride in what you produce is permanent.

“I’ve never had a bad writing session because I don’t sit down to write until I know exactly what I am going to say and what I want to achieve. I stop when the going’s good, and then let the subconscious take over. At some point, the words start flowing again and I stop whatever I’m doing and write.”

Influences on his style included Robert Caro’s five-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. “Caro is the master of making the mundane fascinating. But his pacing was particularly instructive. He knows how to build momentum into a paragraph.

“Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar took the leveraged buyout of Nabisco and turned it into a business thriller, introducing me to narrative non-fiction, a style I’ve been drawn to ever since. But it was Errol Flynn’s My Wicked, Wicked Ways that prompted me to write The Advance Man. He wrote it not to be liked or admired, but to look at himself objectively, warts and all. I found that powerful.”

The Advance Man deals unflinchingly with MacVicar’s stress-induced breakdown and the family issues that caused him to overwork.

“Writing about myself, I employed what I call the cringe factor,” he says. “If I wasn’t cringing at times by what I revealed, then I wasn’t doing justice to the story, the reader, and the lessons to be gleaned.”

As for the thorny business of writing about family, which some writers might find inhibiting: “A memoir is personal, so writing about loved ones is usually unavoidable. But a searing portrait can be mitigated by conveying why they may have behaved as they did. Maybe a cousin was a kleptomaniac, but could the lack of attention from a fatherless home have been the cause?”

In other cases, changing names can be a good idea - not least to avoid being sued.

“You might recall thinking someone in your past was an idiot, and while you might not care what he or she thinks about your opinion now, what about his or her spouse and children? Is it necessary to hurt their feelings too? In general, if I portray someone in a negative light, I change their name and description.”

MacVicar’s new book, A Year in a B&B in Banff, is set thirty years after his circus adventure, and describes how a new relationship lead to him running a bed and breakfast in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Both books can be ordered from Amazon.

Click here to read my review of The Adavnce Man.

Book Review: The Enemy Within by Gary Nott - a circus adventure with a 70s twist.

Do you remember the Bay City Rollers, Look-In magazine and the Six Million Dollar Man?

Gary Nott’s circus adventure The Enemy Within is about a gang of ten, eleven and twelve-year-olds who turn detective in true kids’ fiction tradition. But while it’s clearly aimed at children in that age group, I reckon it will appeal just as much, if not more so, to those of us adults who were that age in 1975, the year the novel is set.

Within the first couple of pages, mentions of Henry Cooper splashing it all over in the Brut cologne adverts, and the Disney film One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing ticked all the nostalgia boxes for me. Yep, I saw that film and, just like the book’s heroes, went to a Wimpy bar afterwards.

Add dancing to Tiger Feet by Mud at the school disco and I was right back there.

Nott’s love for and knowledge of the circus shines from every page as he describes a big top arriving in Torquay for an extended summer season. The circus kids are dumped at the local school for the last few weeks of term where they feel like the outsiders they are. But they quickly make friends with four town kids led by Pete who hopes circus girl Natalie will be his first girlfriend.

But then things start to go wrong at the big top, and the animal rights protestors at the gates are the least of the circus’ problems. With aerialists plummeting from sabotaged ropes and animals set loose, the story is packed with incident.

One of the funniest scenes sees a family of four hiding in a phone box after seeing an escaped bear. “Find somewhere to hide,” they urge the kids who are looking for the bear, “and before you ask, there’s no room in here!”

There are no shortage of suspects for the kids to snoop on, either, from the grumpy clown with a grudge to the shifty elephant groom and the tiger trainer with debts.

I have to admit I guessed the villain early on, but that didn’t stop me enjoying the book tremendously, including the denouement with its nod to Scooby Doo’s classic payoff (and another nostalgic titbit for us grown-ups), “I’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for these pesky kids!”

I also enjoyed Nott’s even-handed treatment of the always thorny issue of animals in the circus, which is a central theme.

Pete is uncomfortable with the sight of the elephant trainer’s bullhook and the confined living spaces in the ‘zoo,’ but notes the lions have more space than the workers in the bunk wagon. He’s somewhat won over by the obvious love that the cat trainers have for their animals. But then he’s shocked by the Russian bear trainers’ rough treatment of their animals - and the way the circus kids accept it.

“The Popov Brothers are rough with their animals,” Yolanda admits. “Not all trainers are kind.”

“Does the gaffer know?”

“Yes, but the brothers are cheap to hire.”

In the event, the circus owner is persuaded to confront the bear keepers, but only under threat of more bad publicity his show can ill-afford. It’s a hollow victory for Pete, meanwhile, because the brothers leave and take their animals to another circus.

“Who’ll look out for them now?” he wonders.

Elsewhere, 12-year-old lion trainer’s son Timmy is resistant to the idea of providing an exercise enclosure when the cats sleep most of the day anyway: Putting up an exercise cage would mean effort and money - you’d have to buy a second cage and then spend time putting it up; he didn’t think it was practical at all.

“We know how to take care of our animals. We don’t need outsiders to tell us how to improve things,” he says, making clear the circus kids’ friendship with the town kids has limits.

Tumblers’ daughter Natalie, meanwhile, keeps her doubts about the animals to herself, knowing that to voice them would mark her as a traitor within a community under attack.

Seamlessly entwined in a children's adventure story, this is a brilliantly judged commentary on a complicated subject. Not anti-circus, or even anti-animals in circus, but precisely pinpointing the grey areas in a subject usually viewed in black and white, I frequently found Pete's reactions to the circus mirroring my own.

Buy it for your kids. Read it for yourself.

The Enemy Within by Gary Nott is published by Vanguard Press and available from Amazon.

For more circus fiction try The Showman's Girl by Julia Douglas - elephants, adventure and romance in the big top in the 1930s. Click here to read a preview.

Love in the Elephant Tent - Book Review

Fancy reading a real-life Water For Elephants? Kathleen Cremonesi's new memoir Love in the Elephant Tent is equal parts love story and circus adventure. Click here to read my review on the world's fastest-growing news site, Blasting News.

Book Review: Hopelessly Hollywood by David H. Lewis

“Call me a sucker for Hollywood mythology,” writes David H. Lewis. And if you feel the same way, you’ll be charmed by Hopelessly Hollywood, his colourful memoir about a young man’s efforts to make it big in Tinsel Town.

Just a flip through the photo selection drew me in. Who wouldn’t be captivated by the sight of the Pan Pacific Auditorium - shaped like an ocean liner complete with funnels - where Lewis competed in a roller-skating tournament as a boy.

Growing up in the I Love Lucy era, Lewis says, “Hollywood cast a spell over me when I could barely walk.” He lived fifty miles from San Francisco in Santa Rosa, an unspoilt piece of small town America that was often used for location filming, and the opportunity as a young man to be an extra in the Bette Davis film Storm Centre cemented the showbiz dream in his heart.

Before long, he was living in LA, where he paints a vivid picture of an aspiring acting community sweltering in the heat by day and chilling by evening in the cool breeze on the pier.

In the faded grandeur of the Halifax Apartments on Yucca Street, “once home to top line entertainers from silent film stars to opera queens” were now “hordes of aging holdouts and young blurry-eyed believers in great American dreams.”

Despite Hollywood’s association with the silver screen, Lewis’ dreams weren’t of movie stardom but of penning a Broadway musical. Los Angeles was also a theatre town. “There were dozens of small theatres, a good many in walking distance of where I lived.” There was also a bottomless pool of acting, composing and producing talent with everyone desperate to be part of any show that might get a review and lead to bigger things - even if that meant working for free or paying for the privilege.

Lewis is also the author of Broadway Musicals: A Hundred Year History. But he’s best known today as America’s foremost commentator on the world of circus. He blogs on the subject as Showbiz David and has written several books on the big top including, most recently, Inside The Changing Circus (penned as David Lewis Hammarstrom).

So it’s no surprise that he pinned his Broadway dreams to a show about the origins of the Ringling Brothers Circus called Those Ringlings.

Lewis takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the staging of his first show at the 58-seat Actor’s Playhouse: the artistic differences, the thrill of a rave review in Variety - “Tears came streaming down my face” - and the subsequent come down of playing to empty seats.

“Have a good LA reality check laugh on me,” he invites us, ruefully.

But in Hollywood, dreams never die; not completely. “You allow yourself another chance, it just keeps going.”

Lewis is a prose stylist with a voice that sizzles on the page. His rich style is perfectly suited to the self-hyping world he describes and makes it easy to imagine how the dialogue in Those Ringlings must have danced. His song titles make me wish I’d been there on opening night.

I hope the show will one day find a new commercial life. (See how easy it is to be caught up in the great Hollywood “maybe...”?)

Lewis is a Hollywood survivor. But woven through his book, and providing its real emotional punch, is a genuine Tinsel Town tragedy in the story of his early collaborator and lifelong friend Mike Kohl.

It’s clear that Mike’s problems were within himself. Hollywood was the backdrop to his downward spiral, not necessarily its cause. Mike’s story nevertheless symbolises the fate of many Hollywood dreams.

Most showbiz memoirs focus on success stories, obscuring the fact that stardom is actually attained by very few. Lewis’ book shows us the reality for the majority who reach for stars that appear closer than they are. Yet such is the passion of the author and the other characters in the tale that even the broken dreams and broken dreamers have a sheen of glamour.

Ultimately, Lewis’ strength is his ability to see through the fantasy without losing sight of it. He’s both clear-eyed cynic and starry-eyed believer, often in the same sentence. If you’ve ever dared to dream, you’ll be with him all the way.

Hopelessly Hollywood by David H. Lewis is available from Amazon.

10 Circus Books for World Circus Day, 20 April 2024

Mabel Stark tussles with a tiger
- a picture of the real life Mabel Stark
from Robert Hough's novel

Saturday 20 April is the 14th World Circus Day! Join the celebrations by reading one of these books!








THE FINAL CONFESSION OF MABEL STARK by Robert Hough
(Atlantic)

From cooch dancer to tiger-wrestling star of the Greatest Show on Earth, with half a dozen husbands along the way, the real life of Ringling legend Mabel Stark provides plenty of material for Robert Hough’s novel. But, written like a memoir, this work of imagination probably brings the golden age of the American circus more thrillingly to life than any factual account. The descriptions of life in the big cat cage, Stark’s many maulings and her relationship with her favourite kitty, Rajah, are especially vivid and convincing - informed, as they are, by some letters about her work that Stark wrote to circus writer Earl Chapin May in preparation for a ghost-written autobiography that never materialised.

From the era to the circus trains and the animal training - and even the structure, which flashes back and forth between Stark's older and younger self - there are parallels with Water For Elephants. But this is a far, far better book, not least due to Hough’s glorious evocation of Stark’s spunky, spiky voice which snaps and snarls from every line.

THE POSTERS OF BERTRAM MILLS by Steven B Richley

The poster has always been the primary means of publicising a circus. Billed as the Quality Show and the show that put the 'O' in Olympia,  Bertram Mills was Britain's biggest and most famous circus in the first half of the 20th century and they produced the finest artwork. Often every act on the bill would have its own poster, painted by some of the best regarded artists of the day, meaning a town could be blanketed with arresting images. In 1960 alone, Bertram Mills printed more than 60,000 posters. And what became of them? Most were simply ripped down and thrown away when the circus left town, meaning surviving examples now command big sums. You'd have to be a millionaire to collect all the designs in this handsome coffee table book which makes it both a visual delight and a complete snip at under £40 including postage. Order from www.doublecrownbooks.co.uk

GIFFORDS CIRCUS - The First Ten Years
by Nell Gifford

In October 1999, Nell Gifford was invited to give a talk at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival the following May. She suggested that they book her circus and gave them a glowing description: "There will be showgirls and a dancing horse and a motorbike and a raucous atmosphere, lit by gaslight!"
The director booked the show. The problem was, Gifford didn’t have a show. Or wagons. Or costumes. Or artists. Or capital.
In Gifford's previous book Josser (by Nell Stroud, as she then was) she described her apprenticeship as a circus runaway. This beautifully illustrated follow-up tells how she and husband Toti took the next step to create a circus of their own - and one of the most successful of the past decade.
Click here to read my full review.

My Life With Lions by Martin Lacey

It was a visit to Martin Lacey's Great British Circus in 2009 that prompted my book Circus Mania. I’d already become fascinated with the daredevil lives of human circus performers and had written several articles on the subject. But when  Lacey reintroduced elephants to a British circus for the first time in a decade, they called to me with the promise of a glimpse into the history of the art form. The highlight of my visit was watching Lacey in the cage with his Bengal tigers and it was as I sat ringside that I realised I had to document a traditional form or entertainment that was - and still is - in danger of being killed off in the land of its creation. Sadly, Lacey is retired now, but this slim hardback book provides a concise and colourful account of his more than 40 years of working with animals of all kinds. Best of all is a 140-page collection of photos of Lacey and his family with not just lions, but polar bears, zebra, camels, elephants and even a rhino.
Click here to read my full review.

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOWMAN - My Life in the Circus by Gerry Cottle
(Vision)

From running away with the circus at 15-years-old to running several of Britain’s biggest big top shows, few have lived the circus life as fully as Gerry Cottle and I have met no one with a greater passion for the sawdust and canvas theatre. This candid memoir provides a fascinating look at the inside workings of the circus industry while entertaining with all the pace, daring-do and belly laughs of any show ever presented by Britain’s Barnum.

THE ADVANCE MAN by Jamie MacVicar
(Dover)

It doesn't matter how good a show is if there's no audience to see it. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus - the Greatest Show on Earth - plays in arenas that hold 12,000 to 20,000 people and the job of filling those seats falls to promoters such as Jamie MacVicar - advance men who arrive in a city two or three months before the circus train arrives and strive to ensure it's greeted by a snowstorm of publicity.
MacVicar's account of his time promoting the circus in the early 70s reads more like a novel - at times a thriller - than a memoir as he takes us into offices where deals are cut, backstage as tickets are counted, and out on publicity stunts with the advance clown and Michu, the Smallest Man in the World. Click here for a full review.

THE SHOWMAN'S GIRL by Julia Douglas

When Emily runs away with the circus in the 1930s, she enters a magical world of perilous adventures, intense friendships and deep passions. Growing up in the big top, she admires from afar the charismatic showman Adam Strand. But Adam is torn between his wife, Jayne, a daredevil tight-wire walker and Molly the elephant trainer who's always carried a torch for him. Emily becomes a star, but will she ever be able to tell Adam how she really feels?
Click here to read this atmospheric big top romance on your Kindle - or pick up the large print version in your local library.

OLIVIA'S ENCHANTED SUMMER by Lynn Gardner

If you’re looking for a Christmas present for the 8-14-year-old girl in your life, look no further than the Olivia books by Guardian theatre critic-turned-author Lyn Gardner. Beginning with Olivia’s First Term, the six books follow the adventures of two circus girls - Olivia and her younger sister Eel - who are billeted at their grandmother’s London stage school while their dad Jack, the Great Marvello, busies himself with such stunts as walking a high-wire between the towers of Tower Bridge.
With a huge cast of characters, the books convey all the excitement of a school where students are daily called to auditions, appear in West End shows and pursue careers as pop singers.
On top of all this there are plenty of thrills as Olivia uses her tightrope skills to foil villains and rescue her pals from peril. Click here for more.

INSIDE THE CHANGING CIRCUS by David Lewis Hammarstrom
(Bear Manor Media)

Like a modern day Earl Chapin May, David Lewis Hammarstrom guides us through the American circus as it exists now. Things have changed from the glory days when Mabel Stark ruled the centre ring, with the Ringling Brothers having become the “Ringless Brothers” since moving out of big tops “that you could almost feel breathing in and out,” and into indoor arenas “as exciting to behold as an abandoned airstrip in the Nevada desert.” Alternately bubbling with enthusiasm and seething with frustration, Hammarstrom is rare among circus writers in pointing out the rubbish, rip-offs and peanut pitches alongside the wonderful in his quest to make you “a more discriminating circus fan.”

CIRCUS MANIA by Douglas McPherson
(Peter Owen)

Modesty forbids me saying too much about my own book, so let’s leave it to Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, the Mail on Sunday: “Circus Mania is a brilliant account of a vanishing art form.” Click on the above tabs to read an extract or click on the book cover above right, go to the Amazon page and reader some of the 5-star reader reviews.

The new, 2nd Edition, updated for Circus250, is out now!

The Advance Man by Jamie MacVicar - Book review - an inside account of promoting the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus

Most circus memoirs are written by performers or showmen. But it doesn’t matter how good a show is if there’s no audience to see it.

Jamie MacVicar’s book lifts the lid on the life of the promotions men who travel to cities two or three months ahead of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus to make sure arenas that hold 12,000 or 20,000 people are packed night after night for the arrival of the Greatest Show on Earth.

The suit-clad advance men may not be as glamorous as the grease-painted performers, but their work is every bit as high stakes and just as skilled. Their job is not just to buy TV, radio, print and billboard advertising, but to multiply the effect of their cash spend by trading tickets for additional ads and arranging promotions that result in a snowstorm of publicity.

MacVicar shows us this world of modern day hucksterism through the eyes of an ambitious trainee and as his narrative unfolds day-by-day, scene-by-scene and conversation-by-conversation, The Advance Man reads more like a novel than a memoir.

Weaving an atmosphere of immediacy rather than reflection, he gives us the sense of being in the office with these guys as deals are hammered out; in windowless backstage rooms as tickets are counted; and in his “beyond seedy” room at the Piccadilly Inn where the relentless pressure builds.

The book appeals on many levels. Circus fans will enjoy visiting backstage where MacVicar carries Michu, the smallest man in the world, to interviews and gets charmed into giving free tickets to the actor Cary Grant.

Anyone interested in sales and marketing - and anyone charged with promoting a circus today - will get a master class in the nuts and bolts of the game.

There’s also a gripping human story here as the young MacVicar’s endless drive eventually propels him to risk his sanity for his “numbers,” the way the high-wire walkers and lion tamers wager their physical being for applause. And, just like the performers in the ring, for the advance man there’s no safety net.

In any book, it’s not so much the story as the way it’s written that creates a satisfying read and it’s in this area that MacVicar delivers with the zeal that drove him during his time with Ringling.

He goes beyond his personal memories to provide us with well-researched digressions into the history of the show’s founders, the Ringling Brothers and PT Barnum; and some of its stars from Chang and Eng, the original Siamese Twins, to Gargantua, the fabled gorilla.

We get a lengthy reflection on the lives of a previous generation of advance men at the dawn of the 20th century - “Would we have been able to adapt to each other’s world? I’d never know. Would we have liked one another? Undeniably.”

There are also insightful passages on small town life, suburbia and the inner city - all viewed by a traveller not sure if he wants to belong or is glad he doesn’t. Such moments give this book depth and, in places, a kind of poetry. They make it more than a book about the circus but a book about America, with a coming-of-age story thrown in. I was reminded of Steinbeck.

Click here to order The Advance Man from Amazon.

And click here to read an interview with Jamie McVicar about how he wrote The Advance Man.