RIP Emilien Bouglione, France’s Prince of the Circus

 

We bid a big top farewell to Emilien Bouglione, horseman and showman, who died on 14 March 2026 at the age of 92.

He and his family ran France's most celebrated circus building, the Cirque d’Hiver-Bouglione, where Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida shot the 1957 film Trapeze. The young Bouglione had a part in the film.

In 1974 Bouglione played a major part in helping Prince Rainier launch the International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo. At the same event, he won a Silver Clown.

Click here to read my behind-the-scenes account of the filming of Trapeze.

When Circus Stunts Go Wrong

A YouTube video of Gandeys Circus' latest production, Hollywood, has captured a moment when a flying trapeze act went wrong.

A flyer's fall to the net is followed by a loud crash as the net appears to become untethered from its anchor point.

It clearly wasn't the scheduled end of the act, but instead of making a second attempt at the somersault, the flyer quietly exited the ring, followed by the rest of the troupe, who descended from their platforms via rope ladders instead of the traditional drop to the net, which had apparently been disabled.

Nobody was hurt, and the show continued without any mention of the incident. But it was clearly a near thing that could have been a lot worse - and a reminder of the danger involved in every circus act.

Big top accidents are rare, thanks to the skill and practice of the performers and their scrupulous attention to safety.

But when things do go wrong, it can be fatal.

My book Circus Mania was inspired by my interview with aerialist Eva Garcia, just days before she fell to her death during a performance at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome.

It was the start of my journey into a canvas-covered world of sword-swallowers puncturing their throats and tiger trainers mauled by their animals as I sought to discover why circus artists risk their necks twice daily for our entertainment.

RIP Gina Lollobrigida, star of Trapeze

Sad to hear that Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida has passed away at the age of 95. Among her many roles, Gina starred with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in one of the greatest circus films ever made: Trapeze. You can read my review of it here.

Gina in Trapeze

 

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome summer circus - meet the cast

Going through the archives, I found this great picture of the cast at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, Britain's oldest circus building still used for its original purpose. In the back row, the Flying Neves trapeze troupe - that's their safety net behind them. Below them, from left to right, we have Joseph Micheletty - Diabolist Extraordinaire; rollerskating siblings Alicia and Miguel Peris; aerial straps and German wheel star Denis Remnez; and, in front of them, Ukrainian balancing act the Bio Brothers. At the front are son and father clown team Danny Adams and, in ringmaster guise, Clive Webb, flanked by the Hippodrome Dancers.

The Great Yarmouth Hippodrome
- where the ring becomes a swimming pool

It was this cast that I met when I went backstage at the Hippodrome to write one of the chapters of Circus Mania. So join me in the Hippodrome's spooky 100-year-old corridors to find the Neves family in training and Miguel Peris talking about growing up in the circus; hear the ghost stories; thrill to Danny Adams recreating Houdini's death-defying milk churn escape; watch the circus ring transformed into a pool for synchronised swimming; and go into showman Peter Jay's caravan - which he keeps inside a secret store room.

Elsewhere in the book, come with me beneath the canvas of the Great British Circus to meet tiger trainer Martin Lacey; cringe at the fakirs of the Circus of Horrors; and wonder at the tales of retired ringmaster George Pinder as he relates the history of Britain's oldest circus family.

It's all in Circus Mania - the book the Mail on Sunday called "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." Click here to buy it from Amazon.

World's first quintuple somersault on the flying trapeze - but is it a genuine quintuple?

A YouTube video from the 21st World Christmas Circus in Stuttgart, Germany shows Han Ho Song apparently breaking a new frontier in the world of flying trapeze - a quintuple somersault.

But is it a 'genuine' quintuple? Documentary maker Phil Wayland has poured cold water on the achievement by calling the stunt an "assisted quintuple," because Song doesn't leave the fly bar alone, he's thrown into the air by another performer.

Commenting on America's most penetrating circus blog, Showbiz David, Wayland says:

"It's an impressive acrobatic feat... but not "classical" trapeze in any sense. The "flyer" hangs from a third performer who then flings the "flyer" up into the air...giving the "flyer" additional momentum unachievable by a solo performer".

Wayland is in the process of making a film about Miguel Vazquez, the first man to turn a quadruple somersault on the flying trapeze. He surely knows his stuff. Read the full post here. And if you haven't seen it yet, click here to watch Song's performance.

But should Song's quintuple be dismissed simply because it doesn't fit the ideal of "classical" trapeze? His troupe's whole act, after all, features multiple performers on multiple swings and shows how trapeze itself has evolved and progressed in the 150 years since Jules Leotard made the first leap from swing to swing.

I'm reminded of the scene in the Burt Lancaster film Trapeze when Lancaster's character talks about the "purity" of the flying trapeze: "One flyer, one catcher." The circus owner mocks Lancaster's ideals and insists Gina Lollobrigida's character joins the act, because he knows the public care nothing for "purity" just glamour and spectacle.

Lancaster counters that the showman is only interested in box office takings, to which the boss replies, "Do you want to work for no pay?"

Wherever art meets entertainment, the purists will always be offended by the impurity of change. But ultimately, it's innovation and change that keeps tradition alive.

The show must go on and, pure, classical, assisted or otherwise, the quintuple-throwing Han Ho Song sure puts on a show!

"I love this book!"
Read six customer
reviews on Amazon

For more on the flying trapeze, go backstage at Britain’s oldest circus building, the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, to meet Brazilian trapeze stars The Flying Neves in rehearsal and warm-up, in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus by Douglas McPherson.

Described by the Mail on Sunday as “A brilliant account of a vanishing art form,” Circus Mania is a behind-the-scenes journey through the world of circus from traditional big top shows with Britain’s last tigers and elephants to the sophistication of Cirque du Soleil.

Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

Those daring young men on the flying trapeze
The Flying Neves Family
a picture from Circus Mania
(Photographer: David Street)

5 Flying Trapeze Facts to celebrate world's first quintuple somersault!

Han Ho Song achieves world's first quintuple somersault
with the North Korean National Circus of Pyongyang

First it was the triple - the holy grail that every trapeze flyer sought to achieve and so few would ever master. Then it was the quadruple - finally accomplished more than a 100 years after the invention of the flying trapeze. Now, in the 21st World Christmas Circus in Stuttgart, Germany, Korean flyer Han Ho Song has made circus history by turning FIVE mid-air back somersaults - the believed impossible quintuple - on no less than 25 occasions.

To celebrate, here are Five Facts about the Flying Trapeze.

Jules Leotard
a drawing from
Circus Mania

1 Leotards are named after the father of the flying trapeze, Jules Leotard, who was the first man to jump from one trapeze swing to another.


2 The first safety net was used by Spanish troupe the Rizarellis at London’s Holborn Empire in 1891.

Burt Lancaster
in Trapeze
Click here to read
my review

3 Burt Lancaster, who played a catcher alongside Tony Curtis in the film Trapeze, was a real life trapeze star before becoming an actor.


4 Miguel Vazquez and his brother Juan were the first to achieve a quadruple somersault, in a performance by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Tuscon, Arizona on July 10, 1982.


5 The swing the flyer uses is called the Fly Bar.

You can watch a video of Han Ho Song’s quintuple on the Circus Geeks website by clicking here.

Update! January 31
- But is it a 'genuine' quadruple? Click here for a contrary view.

For more on the flying trapeze, go backstage at Britain’s oldest circus building, the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, to meet Brazilian trapeze stars The Flying Neves in rehearsal and warm-up, in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus by Douglas McPherson.

Described by the Mail on Sunday as “A brilliant account of a vanishing art form,” Circus Mania is a behind-the-scenes journey through the world of circus from traditional big top shows with Britain’s last tigers and elephants to the sophistication of Cirque du Soleil.

Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

The daring young man on the flying trapeze

Sheet music for
Flying Trapeze

In my recent post on Jumbo, I asked if the name of any other circus performer had become a noun in the English language. The answer, of course, was the French pioneer of the flying trapeze, Jules Leotard, who gave his surname to the tight-fitting outfit that he wore for his act.


Leotard was immortalised in the 1867 song That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, with lyrics by George Leybourne and music by Gaston Lyle - although the name of the flyer in the song is the fictional Signor Bona Slang. Well, he was depicted as a cad who stole the narrator’s girl, so Leotard might have sued...

Jules Leotard
as I drew him in
Circus Mania

The story of Leotard is one of many told in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus.

But now you can hear the song in a new rendition by Graham Parker that is one of many Victorian songs recorded by contemporary artists such as Richard Thomson, Kimmie Rhodes and Christine Collister on an album called The Beautiful Old. For more info go to www.thebeautifulold.com or preview the disc at CD Baby.

All together now:

"He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
That daring young man on the flying trapeze..."