Review: Big Apple Circus meets Circus Theatre Roncalli in New York City, 2023

2023 was the year that Ringling returned with The Greatest Show on Earth, its new animal-free spectacular (you can read my review here). Opening a new era for American circus, it was certainly the biggest show on Earth. 

In New York City, meanwhile, the Big Apple Circus has completely revamped its traditional Christmas stand by bringing to the Lincoln Centre one of the greatest shows in Europe, Circus Theatre Roncalli.

When I reviewed the Big Apple's offering last year (read it here) the procession of solo acts had a decidedly threadbare feel. While the acts themselves were good, there was no sense of a production, no razzmatazz. It certainly didn't look like the jewel in the world's jazziest city. Nor did it look like a show celebrating its 45th birthday, surely an occasion that deserved a bit of glitz. It looked more like a forgotten attraction barely hanging in after a decade of decline and bankruptcy - which, alas, it was.

The arrival of Circus Theatre Roncalli has changed that, and turned New York's resident big top into a must-see attraction once more. Ringling's arena show may be the biggest show on Earth, but Roncalli's one-ring show is undoubtedly the brightest, filling the tent with a non-stop swirl of colour and making a trip to the circus a truly theatrical event.

The immersive experience begins outside the main tent, with an adjacent circus museum full of pictures and costumes from Roncalli's and Big Apple's history. This is something that British circuses should really invest in. The Great Yarmouth Hippodrome has had a backstage museum for the past decade, and each of the travelling shows must have a wealth of old posters, props and costumes in storage. If they were presented in a separate tent beside the big top, the circuses could earn extra revenue with a token charge to walk through circus history in the way that they used to charge visitors to see the animals in the 'zoo' after the show.

In New York you can also buy a ticket to a VIP area where you can sip wine and have your picture taken with the performers while being serenaded by Roncalli's 8-piece jazz band.

Yes, Roncalli has a band! While most circuses these days rely on recorded music with a contemporary pop feel, Roncalli has a live band, seated on a balcony above the plush red ring doors. The music is distinctly old style - including a bit of the traditional circus music Entrance of the Gladiators - and helps to transport us into a dream-like circus world.

The music goes perfectly with the costumes worn by the artists, including traditional red circus tailcoats, and a team of half a dozen Broadway-style dancers whose dresses evoke a variety of eras, from Victorian vaudeville to the royal ballrooms of 17th century France.

The show is performed on a raised circular stage with no ring curb to create a barrier between the action and the audience. It begins with Angelo, an exquisitely costumed traditional white-face clown playing a saxophone while solemnly circling the stage.

The quiet opening captures our attention before the show suddenly bursts into life.

Two more clowns descend from the ceiling in a hot air balloon and basket. While the balloon is removed from the stage, a circus train comprising a small lorry and two huge circus wagons circle the perimeter.

The opening sequence sets up the loose theme of travel, reflected in the show's title, Journey to the Rainbow.

In keeping with the theme, a contortionist performs atop what looks like a tall but narrow ship's funnel. He then folds himself in two and slides down the inside of the tube and emerges from a door in the base.

Also on the travel theme, a cyclist pedals around the inside of a basket made from wooden slats that is hoisted into the air, swinging and swaying about like a lampshade, while he rides around the basket's sloping walls with nothing but an open hole beneath him.

It's not an act I've seen before, but America's No1 ring-watcher Showbiz David reported on one in his review of the Zoppe Italian Family Circus in sunny California a couple of months back (read his review here), so maybe it's a new trick coming into fashion (or perhaps it was the same performer). David wasn't impressed by what he called a "refreshing prop in search of a payoff." And it's true that it is a one-trick act. But in Roncalli's fast-moving programme it doesn't last long. It would definitely make a change to see such an act in a UK circus instead of the ubiquitous motorcycle Globe of Death (which isn't featured in the Roncalli ring).

While Ringling fields big acts, like a crisscrossing flying trapeze and a human cannonball in its big arena spaces, Roncalli goes for more intimate music hall-style acts. Emma Philips is one of the most entertaining foot-jugglers I have seen. Dressed as a vintage showgirl with a feather in her hat (she made her own costume, too) she spins a table atop her feet while spinning a parasol in each hand.

A juggler wows with a one-handed juggling of three clubs. A tightrope walker bounces back and forth between two crossed ropes. A clown performs a comedy springboard act, flipping a teddy bear into a chair atop his head. 

Elsewhere in the show, a male and female aerial routine is romantically dressed with candelabras flickering around the ring and a female vocalist singing a romantic ballad while a pianist plays a baby grand beside the ring doors, conjuring the feel of a cabaret supper club.

Just as Ringling has ditched its animals - and with them a whiff of controversy that has dogged the circus industry for decades - this is the first year that the Big Apple Circus has featured only human performers. Last year's show featured just one act with small dogs, and it looked like a token reminder of a bygone era of entertainment.

And yet, the ghost of circus past haunts the Lincoln Centre's tent this Christmas. The strangest act in the show features three performers dressed as polar bears. These aren't the big, jolly cartoon-like costume characters that lumber around the ring at Zippos Christmas Circus in London, however.

The Roncalli bears move on all-fours like real bears. Guided by a female trainer with a whip, they recreate a traditional polar bear act, standing on their hind legs on podiums and walking across a see-saw.

It looks like a dream sequence, a memory of circus as it was... and anyone who finds circuses creepy may well find it disturbing! I can't see anyone who disliked the idea of animals being 'forced to perform'  enjoying this reminder of what they came to an all-human circus to avoid. But then, maybe circus directors can't help giving us a little shiver now and then. As much as the industry decries the image of cruel lion tamers and scary clowns, perhaps there is a little dark corner of the circus' heart that enjoys being sinister.

Playing to that other-worldly image of mysterious circus people, the show concludes with a bewitching bubble-blowing act by Paulo Carillon, a steampunk clown who drives into the ring in a bizarre vehicle apparently made from scrap metal that, being a former engineer, he made himself.

His moodily lit act shows the artful beauty that can be created by a clown in a tent. And then, after that spell-binding moment, everything is suddenly all light and colour again for the full-cast finale.

It's a show that truly takes us on a journey, through a multitude of moods and, alongside the completely different but in its own way just as impressive Ringling show, suggests that the American circus industry is on the upswing into a bright new era.

New Yorkers certainly seem to be lapping it up, with Roncalli's run extended by two weeks until 15 January.

 

Review: The Greatest Show On Earth, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, 2023

The biggest circus story of 2023 was the return of The Greatest Show on Earth. It's a show with 150 years of history behind it. The name is known throughout the world, evoking huge tents with three rings in a golden age of entertainment. Even the names of the men behind it - the Ringling Brothers and PT Barnum - now immortalised on film as The Greatest Showman - are legendary.

But history can also be baggage, anchoring a name or concept in the past while the world changes and fashion moves on. By the 2010s, the Ringling show was on the wrong side of history. The elephant parade that was part of its brand belonged to a time when such things were uncontroversial. By 2016 they were the cause of protest, lawsuits and legislation that made them nonviable in the world of commercial entertainment.

Ringling ditched the elephants but also lost its audience and closed the following year, after 146 years on the road.

Could it come back, after a six year break, with a new all-human look and reclaim its throne as the Greatest Show on Earth?

For me, as a British observer, the show's challenge was filling arenas that seat 20,000 people. Not just filling all those seats, but filling a vast performance space more suited to sports events.

In Europe, we're accustomed to the intimacy of the big top. A circus tent that folds snugly around its spotlit ring is a magical place in its own right. Part of the appeal is the closeness of the action. In the front row, the trapeze artists swing over our heads. The clowns are close enough to squirt us with water. We can see the trembling of a straining muscle and the sweat on a performer's brow. Can a man balancing on a rola-rola be as involving when he's a distant stick figure?

I've watched the Ringling show several times on YouTube videos shot from various positions in the arena and it's clear that some seats feel a long way from the action. If you're at one end of the arena, a hoop jumping act at the far end is hard to even see, let alone feel the physicality in the way that you would if it was happening just feet from you.

At the same time, though, arena seating can offer a new perspective. In the highest seats - and the cheapest, perhaps? - you can sit above the high wire artists and look down on them, instead of looking up at them. You can sit at the level of the flying trapeze platforms and watch the flyers swoop down away from you into the well of the arena. It's a refreshingly different angle and might it even convey a greater sense of height than viewing such acts from the ground?

Ringling, in any case, was staging shows in three-ring tents this size 100 years ago, and moved into arenas in the 1950s, so they (or Feld Entertainment, to credit the current operators) know how to work the space. 

At the start of the show, an impressive number of performers run out to fill the arena floor. 75 of them, although with all the colour and movement it looks like more. Lauren Irving belts out the stirring and catchy theme song, 'Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth' and a blaze of swirling lighting effects quickly whips a substantially full auditorium into a celebratory atmosphere.

The centrepiece of the arena is a raised ring-cum-stage. Shaped like an upturned bowl, it has sloping sides that form a ramp for access and continuously changes colour while displaying moving patterns across all its surfaces. It also has a moving track within its top, allowing some props and performers to revolve while others stand still, and a central disc that can be raised on hydraulic lifts to put the spotlight on a rola-rola or balancing act.

A British circus like Gandeys or Circus Extreme really needs to get one of these illuminated stages, which would look great within a big top, and perhaps even better than it does in an arena.

There are additional raised square stages at each end of the building, which give patrons in the end seats a close-up view of particular acts, such as a very strong skipping act, with several people standing on each others' shoulders while they jump the rope.

The area around the stages is laid out like a skate park that is used to great effect by a team of stunt cyclists, who swarm about, drawing our eye this way and that across the huge space, and turn impressive somersaults as they fly off the scattered ramps.

Comedy is provided by Equivokee, a trio from Ukraine. I'm not going to complain about the lack of red noses and clown make-up, although some traditionalists have. For me, slapstick is about more than make-up, as Laurel and Hardy proved a century ago. The funniest thing on UK TV at the moment is a children's programme called Danny and Mick which stars Danny Adams, Mick Potts and Clive Webb - the stars of Cirque du Hilarious. They dress as normal people while doing all the old clown routines like the wallpaper routine, and make them funnier than ever.

I can't say that Equivokee made much of an impression on me, but I think that was less their fault than the size of the arena. Clowning works best close up when you can see the facial expressions and the twinkle in an eye, and when the jesters are engaging directly with - or picking on! - the audience. At a distance, the humour evaporates within too much space.

Luckily, the Greatest Show on Earth fields plenty of 'big' acts that make good use of the space and height available.

A triangular high wire act by the Lopez Family is apparently a world first. It's such a simple and visually impressive concept that it's a wonder no one has thought of it before. Instead of performers crossing a single wire, there are performers simultaneously doing different things on three wires arranged in a triangle.

It's an act that would fit neatly above the ring of a big top, and which a UK circus should import, although it comes with additional challenges. According to Maria Lopez, the walkers have to cope with vibrations coming from the other wires.

Another big act that perfectly fits the space, and another update on an old theme, is a criss-crossing flying trapeze routine by the Flying Caceres. With two sets of performers crossing paths it literally adds another dimension - depth, towards us and away from us - to an act that usually only draws our eye from side to side.

The Nevas Troupe perform side-by-side on a Double Wheel of Destiny (a pair of what used to be called the Wheel of Death - because people have died performing it). They make impressive leaps atop the spinning contraptions and the release of fireworks adds to the thrills. One performer makes a daring leap between the two wheels and back again. That is the only moment, though, that two wheels is better than one. I found myself watching only one as it was difficult to watch two at the same time, and that made having two a little pointless. That one leap between them aside, I wonder if it would be better to separate the wheels and have one at each end of the arena, so that everyone would get a better view of at least one of them, rather than confining the pair to one end.

Speaking of world firsts, Wesley Williams rides the world's tallest unicycle as confirmed in the Guinness World of Records. The 34-foot-tall contraption, which is the equivalent of sitting astride a three-storey-tall ladder that isn't resting against anything (and is in fact balanced on a wheel!) puts his head right up among the lights in the roof.

It's true that he doesn't ride it very far, just back and forth across the width of the arena. Imagine if he could do a lap of honour around the whole building! He also wears a visible safety wire, but who can blame him?

But what about the absence of animals, which has offended some old school fans? Did I miss the parade of rubber mules that were Ringling's trademark? No, I didn't.

In the past, I have championed animals in the big top, and I enjoyed seeing what will probably be the last elephants and big cats to appear in a British circus. But that was a decade ago. The UK circus has almost entirely moved on from animals and, dare I whisper it among circus fans, it's better for it.

When I began reporting on the circus scene, the industry was up to its neck in the animal issue. There were pickets at the gates and negative press. Even the circuses without animals were compelled to talk about them. The image of the big top was so bad that many people hated circuses without ever seeing one. The ageing proprietors were embattled and embittered. It was no atmosphere in which to stage bright, happy family entertainment. The business was being sucked down like a man dying in quicksand.

Today, with the animals almost entirely gone, and no one even talking about them anymore, the circus feels like it has been reborn. The shows have a clean, modern aesthetic, with stages and floored seating replacing sawdust and mud. The negative image has evaporated, and audiences bring their kids without having to worry about ethics. The atmosphere in the shows and among a new generation of show-runners is invigorated and forward looking. The scene feels like it's thriving.

The new Ringling show feels like that, too, and maybe enough time has passed for it to find a new audience without alienating its old one.

And yet, Ringling hasn't copied Cirque du Soleil, the first big show to pioneer the idea of a circus without animals. The Greatest Show on Earth has not been produced in the style of 'new circus' - a format that once, and perhaps still does, sat apart from the big top kind, with both parties disliking each other in equal measure.

Ringling has not switched camps. There is no story line here, no theme, no message, no attempt to dress circus up as art. It is a traditional circus - perhaps we could say New Traditional - in the sense of providing colourful spectacle and uncomplicated family fun. It's only aim is to entertain, and it does so in abundance.

Although the acts aren't linked, they flow effortlessly from one to the next and the feel-good spirit will send you home singing "Welcome to the Greatest Show on earth!" Reader, I've been singing it all week!

The finale is 'human rocket' Skyler Miser. It's a simple act, but one guaranteed to put a smile on the face. As Skyler steps into her cannon, the whole arena chants the countdown: "Ten, nine, eight..." I even chanted it aloud at home: "Five, four, three..."

Boom! Like the immortal spirit of the circus, Skyler flies the length of the arena and lands on an inflatable crash pad.

Irving signs off with the company's slogan, which has become the salutation of circus worldwide: "May all your days be..." But wait! Instead of saying, "circus days," she says, "may all your days be Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey days!"

Has the image of circus become so tarnished in America that the Felds won't even utter the C-word? The word is conspicuously absent from the description of the show on their website.

This is a circus, however, and one that deserves to put the shine back on the word. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in 2023 it is currently the Greatest Circus on Earth.

For tour dates and tickets, click here.

  

 

BIG APPLE CIRCUS REVIEW 'DREAM BIG'

Big Apple star Gena Cristiani

And so we head across the Atlantic - on YouTube Airlines - to the city so good they named it twice for a visit to the Big Apple Circus.

America's most fearlessly honest big top watcher, Showbiz David, was unimpressed with this 45th year production. Read his review, here. But he also hoped to see some other write-ups that might offer a different perspective, so I thought I'd give it a spin.

For a show titled Dream Big that stars one of the biggest names in circus, Grand Canyon-crossing wire-walker Nik Wallenda, this edition of New York's favourite circus has a decidedly 'small' feel - and not in the cosy, intimate sense. A procession of solo acts presented with little window dressing gives the proceedings a low budget look. 

Apart from a nice cylindrical curtain that encloses the ring before the show, there's no production to speak of. No special effects, dancers, glitz, spectacle or razzmatazz. 

Strangely, the show does open with a pleasing vignette that features all the performers in a kind of storybook or childhood dream setting. I say strangely, because the scene suggests we might be in for a story or a show with a theme. The strange thing, however, is that after that single scene, the director seems to have stopped directing the show. The artists simply come on, do their bit and go off, with nothing to connect them.

The short video messages with which the performers introduce themselves is a pleasant touch, but even that looks a little homely and amateur talent show-like. And given that this show runs over the Christmas period, where is the falling snow, balloons, Xmas decorations or even Christmas songs? Surely Christmas in New York is supposed to be a big deal, isn't it?

The acts themselves are fine. I enjoyed the juggling routine of Gena Cristiani (pictured above), a local girl from Queens, and especially her diabolo tricks with a couple of hats. I was also thoroughly entertained by a razor-blade-swallowing performer from Japan (whose name is sadly absent from the Big Apple's website). He also swallows and regurgitates a very long inflated balloon. Pulling out the razor blades on a long string is an old trick, but one with such a wince-inducing quality that it's always hard not to be engrossed.

There is also a cute act with small dogs, although in the current climate it may not be to everyone's taste. Speaking as someone who has often championed tigers and elephants in the big top, I'm surprised to find myself typing this, but I didn't find the sight of the little mutts walking on their back legs very endearing and in fact ever so slightly... distasteful? Blimey. Next, I'll be joining Peta. Just kidding, but maybe my tastes in circus are changing. Either that, or something about this particular act in this particular show didn't do the trick for me.

Perhaps I'd like to see a show that's full on with sawdust, horses, snarling beasts and polar bears sliding down chutes, or one that's all glossy and all-human. All or nothing, in other words. One thing or the other. This one seemed to fall between two stools with the little dog act - a relic from a glorious animal-heavy past - just making the programme look small, tawdry and old fashioned. 

Circus is all about tradition, but also eternal renewal. It shouldn't look like a tired shadow of its past, but a bold, bright, startling thing of today and tomorrow.

Headline clown Johnny Rockett (pictured left) gets a lot of ring time throughout the show, playing off of a diminutive ringmaster. Not everything he does made me laugh, but the kids in the tent absolutely lapped him up, and that's probably the main thing.

My favourite part of the show found Rockett swaying about on top of a rubber lamppost right in the middle of the audience. That's the sort of funny-scary up-close antics that circus excels in.

It's a rare circus that doesn't deliver at least one knockout blow and Rockett on the lamppost was the golden moment for me.

Nik Wallenda's high-wire troupe provide a solid finale, if not a particularly exciting one. To be fair, it's not the sort of act that translates well to watching on a screen. You have to be there, to see the height and feel the peril. The same is true of a lofty hand-balancing act elsewhere on the bill. But, that said, I have seen more entertaining work on the wire this year, namely by Henry the Clown at Circus Extreme. Read my review of that show here.

Over all, I have to agree with Showbiz David that this is a mediocre show. There's nothing wrong with the individual acts. But it looks nothing like a must-see attraction for visitors to New York this Christmas. And as one of America's most famous circuses, it really should do, shouldn't it?

Nik Wallenda and cast

For a behind-the-scenes journey through the contemporary circus scene, with reviews of circuses of all types, both traditional and modern, plus interviews with big top owners and performers from clowns and sword-swallowers to trapeze artists and tiger trainers, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus!

Click here to read the 5-star reviews on Amazon.

 

Circus Extreme coming to Glasgow - Review of Britain's biggest and best circus

It has been said that circuses thrive in a recession. They offer a comparatively inexpensive night out and, since they come to your town, they bring little of the travel and parking problems/expenses associated with many other forms of entertainment. When times are hard, though, they have to provide value for money and plenty of bang for your buck.

Circus Extreme, from the producers of the Circus of Horrors and Continental Circus Berlin, does both in spades. Although ringside seats are advertised at £32, concessions mean you can get into Britain's biggest big top for as little as £9 - and for that you will will see what I reckon must be Britain's most spectacular circus in terms of the number of thrilling acts.

The finale is actually the most stunning act I have seen in a big top. The Globe of Death, in which motorcyclists race around inside a spherical cage, is in itself a far from unique act and in fact has become somewhat passe - you can see one in many big tops this year. Even the fact that the Circus Extreme globe splits into two hemispheres, with bikes circling both the top and bottom halves is not a unique innovation. Zippos and Santus have globes that do the same trick this year.

What makes Circus Extreme stand out is the way the stunt riders jump Evel Kneivel-style over the globe at the routine's climax. The bikes come roaring in through the front of the tent, hit a ramp and leap into the very top of the roof space, crossing the whole ring and the towering globe at its centre, before landing on an inflatable ramp and careering out through the back doors.

As the bikes fly through the air, the riders leave their mounts - bodies and legs flying high above their machines - hanging on to just the handlebars or saddles. The last two riders, following each other in quick succession, perform death-defying somersaults above the globe, before landing safely.

Prior to this act, the most high-flying daredevilry that I have seen in a circus is performers taking flight from a Russian swing - an act that can make the flying trapeze look tame. The stunt riders go every bit as high, if not higher, than a Russian swing troupe, however, and the fact that they are on motorbikes (and in an indoor venue) adds its own high-octane thrill. 

The motorcycle leaps at Circus Extreme are worth the ticket price alone, but there are plenty of other dramatic stunts to witness.

Given its thrilling finale, the show I saw actually got off to a dull start with a singer (never an act that looks especially at home in a circus) performing a ballad that might be titled Better Days Are Coming. It appears to be about moving on from the Covid years, and as a group of performers file in behind the singer, dressed as policemen and NHS workers, holding signs that proclaim 'Hope' and 'Freedom', the message seems a bit heavy handed. Do we even  want to be reminded, during what is supposed to be a night of escapism?

Despite the ballad's apparently upbeat message, I found the music rather gloomy - although I've since been told that the singer had lost her voice on that occasion and had to sing in a lower register than normal. I'm assured the song is usually performed in a joyous way.

The show quickly moves on, however, into a succession of skilled acts, beginning with a male and female rollerskating duo.

Soon after, the male and female Ariel Duo Polischuk literally get the bit between their teeth. She hangs upside down with her jaws clamped around a short chain from which her revolving partner is also hanging from his teeth.

This is the sort of spectacle that circus should be about: things that you can't quite believe you're seeing. And while all circus skills are impressively beyond the capability of those of us watching at ringside, shows also need to find new and unique spectacles that we can't see at every circus that comes to town.

Sometimes the newness can be in the way an act is dressed. The trench-coat-clad Tony Garcia, for example, gets a gasp from the audience when he fires up an impressively large flame-thrower. He then performs an inverted juggling routine, bouncing countless balls on the roof of a car that he has set fire to. The skill is in the juggling, but it's the car and the flames licking around his boots that make the act into something special.

Another act improved immeasurably by the way it is staged involves Laura Miller on an aerial hoop who is periodically lowered into a glass tank of water, where she turns underwater somersaults like a mermaid. The climax to her routine sees her drop with heart-stopping speed into what has become a vat of fire.

Henry the Clown performs a number of silent routines throughout the programme, including a comedy waiter skit, but it's as part of a high-wire troupe, fresh from the Monte Carlo Circus Festival, that he really shines: riding a unicycle on the wire, 12 metres up, with another performer standing on his shoulders, juggling.

Henry has set a world record for skipping on the wire, with 211 skips in 60 seconds, but since that's three skips a second, the rope was moving too fast for me to count how many he managed on this occasion! Being a clown, Henry also did a cartoonish pretend fall - revolving under the wire and ending up back on top again! Sometimes the simple tricks have the most impact. A bit like the motorcycle leaps of the finale, really. Bikes leaping across the ring is a simple concept - but you won't see anything like it in most other circus tents - and it's those one-off experiences that have brought the punters to the circus for 250 years.

Although the Circus Extreme big top can hold a reported 3000 people, the circus is selling only 1000 seats, so Covid-nervous patrons won't have to fear being crammed together. Director John Haze reports strong ticket sales in each of the cities where Circus Extreme is playing for up to three weeks at a time - the longer than usual stays allowing the show to benefit from word-of-mouth sales. And deservedly so, because it's unlikely that any other British show is fielding such a strong bill this year.

For Circus Extreme tour dates, click here.

For a behind-the-scenes journey through the contemporary circus scene, with reviews of circuses of all types, both traditional and modern, plus interviews with big top owners and performers from clowns and sword-swallowers to trapeze artists and tiger trainers, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus!

Click here to read the 5-star reviews on Amazon.

 

Film Review: The Golden Age of Circus: The Show of Shows

If you believe the circus to be a place of weirdness, cruelty, suffering and exploitation; grotesque, shocking, seedy and bizarre... then this collection of old black and white film set to music and edited like a walk through a house of mirrors by Benedikt Erlingsson will meet all your expectations and more - even if you find yourself watching through your fingers with one eye closed in a wince.

As a caption announces at the beginning of this BBC4 Storyville show (view it here), "Contains upsetting scenes."

Well maybe, if you're scared of clowns, believe all circus animals are tortured prisoners, and the human freaks that accompany them are exploited just as fully.

Personally, I loved it.

Mostly. At an hour and a quarter, it's far too long, and some of the sequences are stretched too far. But the commentary-free style, with similar scenes from different circuses on different continents grouped together and intercut like a pop video to the club beats of a band called Sigur Ros is both poetic and hypnotic.

And the grainy, faded images that bombard us are relentlessly striking. To take a few:

A woman dancing wildly with a chair in her mouth.

A toddler standing nervously in front of a knife thrower's board while a woman, perhaps her mother, throws knives around her.

A man wreathed in flames diving from a towering ladder into a pool that's also alight.

Not everything is strictly circus. There are sideshow strippers, vaudeville dancers and rodeo cowboys. But there are connections. Shots of steer wranglers and bucking broncos are cut with a man in a circus ring being thrown from an 'unrideable' mule.

There are animals galore: Half a dozen polar bears on a merry-go-round; elephants dancing in plaid shirts; chimps riding horses; a lion riding a horse.

Those who believe circus animals are cruelly treated will have their beliefs affirmed by these scenes. But that's the way they've been edited and juxtaposed with the music: to shock.

As the music accelerates, more violent barbarism assaults our contemporary sensibilities: toddlers in boxing gloves slugging it out; chimps boxing; women boxing; blindfolded men swinging madly at each other; a boy boxing a kangaroo.

Even the clips of escapologists being bound and hoisted aloft by the ankles - or locked in boxes and set on fire - look more like torture than entertainment.

Did people really applaud and laugh at such cruel spectacles, we're invited to wonder?

But, as I say, that's the way it's been edited: to look like a nightmare. Even the clowns have been set to music and had bits of their act taken out of context in ways that makes them look bizarre and ugly, rather than funny.

A lot of circus people and fans have said they hated it, for that reason. But then, it's wrong to view Erlingsson's film as a documentary. It's a visual poem, a piece of art in its own right that takes real film and filters it through the director's imagination into his own vision of what the circus is or should be. Taken as such, it works, often thrillingly well.

But it's not the circus as people would necessarily have seen it at the time. There are some stunning scenes here of human cannonballs, trapeze artists and high wire walkers. But to see them presented in context and in a truer representation of the circus as a place of dreams and wonder, rather than nightmares and fear, take a look at a DVD called The British Circus 1898 - 1972. Read my review here.

Has New Circus Run It's Course? Circa at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival

Out in sunny California, circus blogger Showbiz David calls the arty end of circus 'big top brocolli.' I had a plateful at the weekend, but did it do me good?

Read my review of What Will Have Been by Australian ensemble Circa at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival this week, in The Stage, or read it online here. (You may have to register, but it's free.)

GIFFORDS CIRCUS - The First Ten Years Book Review

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.

Building a circus from scratch in time for Hay-on-Wye took its toll on Nell and her landscape gardener husband, Toti. They ran up a £100,000 debt, had to move out of their rented cottage and slept on the floor of a pub where the landlord gave them free food.

Two engagements on the way to Hay did not improve their financial situation. They couldn’t give tickets away. Their vehicles fell apart on the roadside.

But they dragged their convoy, broke and broken, to the festival to find their three-day stand was sold out. The audience and critics loved them, and a new darling of the circus world was born.

The circus is full of wonderful stories - of magical moments plucked from disaster - and Gifford’s is one of them.

Her previous book, Josser, describes how she ran away with a circus to escape her pain after her mother was brain-damaged in a fall from a horse. Her apprenticeship mucking out horses and elephants on Santus Circus in the 90s was far from glamorous. It was, in her words, “a hard and negative world and a bad time for circus.” But she had seen the flipside of how circus could be presented and appreciated in America’s Circus Flora and Germany’s Roncalli, and she wanted to rebuild the dream world of the big top in her homeland.

Nell Gifford riding high

Giffords Circus - The First Ten Years, relates how she and Toti took the next step to create a circus of their own. Their work ethic is exhausting to read about. The side story of how they transformed a derelict garden centre into their home and winter base - a linked house and practise barn that symbolises how closely their lives and art are entwined - is a tale of hard work and determination in its own right. It’s even more amazing that they did it between trips to Moscow and Hungary in search of performers, and rehearsals in which nobody shared a language.

This beautifully illustrated book delves deeply into both the artistic and practical sides of running a circus.

Inspired by a chanced-upon drawing of a ballerina standing on horseback, Gifford sought out a ballerina and horse to create an act she describes as “A step forward to defining who we were.”
When a rare excursion from Gloucestershire to inner-city Hoxton Square was nearly thwarted in its final yards by a gate too narrow for their vintage wagons into the square, Toti pulled the gatepost from the concrete with his bare hands.

In a circus world fragmented into fifty shades of ‘new’ and ‘traditional,’ Giffords Circus, with its vintage look, tiny tent, horses, dogs and gentrified audience, occupies a niche of one. Gifford traces her artistic vision to memories of a bohemian middle class childhood, before her mother’s accident, where special occasions were always celebrated on a grand scale but everything had to be homemade. Endless food and endless guests. Dressing up. Handmade decorations. Singing. Games.

A visitor described their first show as “Edwardian children playing at circus,” and Gifford took it as a compliment.

Giffords’ style has been dubbed ‘heritage circus.’ But it’s not just circus they’re preserving - it’s a slice of middle England. A rural middle class mindset of country pubs, village greens, fetes, gymkhanas and do-it-yourself fun. “An English world where the pony is childhood.”

It’s no wonder Giffords Circus wowed the patrons of the Hay-on-Wye Festival - bohemian thinkers who would be out of place in the gritty working class environs of Peter Jolly’s Circus (Britain’s last with lions and tigers, and a picket line of animal rights protestors to match) and who probably wouldn’t be totally comfortable with the slick metropolitan aesthetic of Cirque du Soleil either.

It’s funny. When I was writing my own book, Circus Mania, I often found myself comparing audiences as much as shows: different circuses for different classes. On one hand, the appeal of the circus transcends class. But, in England at least, it doesn’t unite the classes. Perhaps in England, it never could. We like to pretend we’re a classless society, but the tribes of class are as rigidly separatist as ever, and nowhere is that more apparent than in a journey through our circus tents. Giffords Circus thrives in the shires where it’s audience shares the same childhood memory of what a circus should be.

Giffords Circus - The First Ten years by Nell Gifford (The History Press)

Giffords Circus barn - one careful owner

For Sale
If you'd like to buy the perfect house to run a circus from, Giffords Circus HQ, Folly Farm has gone on the market for £1.5m. Click here for more.

Circus Mania in the news

"Roll up, roll up, for a glimpse
behind the greasepaint."
- Some press coverage of Circus Mania

My thanks to all the journalists who have reviewed or featured Circus Mania so far. Click here to read a dozen reviews of what the Mail on Sunday called "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form."

Circus Mania review by This is Cabaret

Danny Adams
The modern face of clowning.
Read his story in
Circus Mania

"Pack your bags before reading Circus Mania, it may leave you yearning to run away with the circus!

That’s the verdict of Helen Whitcher who has written a fantastic in-depth review of Circus Mania on the online magazine This Is Cabret.com.

Among some quotes from the extensive review:

“This comprehensive and thought-provoking book covers the breadth, depth and some of the moral issues of the circus world.”

“The research and study that has contributed to the book is outstanding, leaving little room for criticism.”

With the review appearing during International Clown Week, it was also nice to see Whitcher add:

“A wonderful extra is a cultural and in-depth look at the changes in clowning throughout history.”

Read the full review on This Is Cabaret.com This Is Cabaret.

"Roll up, roll up, for a
glimpse behind the greasepaint."
- Press coverage for
Circus Mania

Click here to read a dozen reviews of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

And click here to read half a dozen five star customer reviews on Amazon.

Circus Mania
Updated 2nd Edition out now!

Circus Mania review - "Circus Mania opens a much needed tent-flap into today's circus world."

My thanks to Katherine Kavanagh for posting a great review of Circus Mania on her website The Circus Diaries.


Having begun by calling Circus Mania

“an engaging and enjoyable read, offering an evocative flavour of circus life,”

she goes on to state,

“I have no doubt that this will be a fascinating resource to scholars of the future looking back on our particular period of history.”

The review concludes:

“Above all it is an entertaining and accessible read, and certainly opens a much needed tent-flap into today’s circus world.”

The Circus Diaries, incidentally, exists to promote a greater critical discourse about circus, which is something the industry sorely needs. I recommend you take a look.

Updated for 2018

And if Kathryn's review makes you want to read Circus Mania, just click here to buy the new updated 2nd Edition from Amazon.

Circus Mania reviews

Circus Mania
in the headlines

CIRCUS MANIA

The Greatest Show on Earth in a book!


Looking for last minute Christmas presents? Why not take advantage of a great special offer to buy Circus Mania by Douglas McPherson at the special offer price of just £10 postage free?

Described by the critics as “Brilliant,” “Ingenious,” “Captivating” and “The greatest show on Earth in a book,” Circus Mania is packed with behind-the-scenes backstage stories and ideal Christmas reading for anyone with fond memories of childhood trips to the circus or more recent visits to Cirque du Soleil - that’s all of us, isn’t it?

Here’s what the critics and readers have said:

“Circus Mania is a brilliant account of a vanishing art form... an excellent book.”

- Roger Lewis, Mail on Sunday.

“Remarkable... captivating... beguiling... a real page-turner.”

- Eastern Daily Press

“
Like a good old fashioned circus the book rollicks along at a cracking pace, delivering a cast of colourful characters, and a parade of stories of the life-is-stranger-than-fiction variety. There are thrills and spills, acts of derring-do, heart-in-mouth moments, and laughs aplenty. The circus deserves this book and, like the circus, McPherson deserves for Circus Mania to reach a very wide and appreciative audience.”

- Tina Jackson, The Writers Hub website.

The headline says it all!
Circus Mania reviewed in World's Fair

“The greatest show on Earth in a book. Circus Mania serves as a panoramic peek behind the velvet curtain, covering every imaginable aspect of what goes on behind the scenes. An unmissable read.”

- World’s Fair.

“Ingenious... engaging... a powerful introduction to circus performance then and now.”

- The Call Boy, British Music Hall Society

Circus Mania reviewed in The Call Boy

“Full of stories and anecdotes that give readers a good sense of the thrills and dangers associated with the big top. The book should appeal to circus fans of all ages and levels of interest.”

- Booklist (USA)
“A passionate and up-to-date look at the hard work, danger and sometimes even death that world class circus performers face every day.”

-Gerry Cottle, showman.
“I really loved reading this book. Every page buzzes with memorable characters and stories, some funny, some sad, all fascinating.”

- 5-star Amazon customer review.
“Circus Mania is one of those rare non-fiction books that you end up reading as if it is a novel. It has great characters and plots and beautifully written descriptions.”

- Another 5-star Amazon customer review.

To save £5 off the recommended retail price and buy Circus Mania at the special offer price of just £10 including postage in the UK (£2.75 postage worldwide) send cheques to:

Peter Owen Publishers

81 Ridge Road

London N8 9NP

Or click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.


WORLD CIRCUS DAY APRIL 21, 2012 - WORLD CIRCUS DAY APRIL 21, 2012 - WORLD CIRCUS DAY APRIL 21, 2012

Circus Mania Review in The White Tops

“An inside view from the outside.”

Chelsea McGuffin in Circa
- Read about her
daredevilry and the
behind-the-scenes lives
of many other performers in
Circus Mania

My thanks to Mort Gamble for his gracious and perceptive review of Circus Mania in The White Tops - America’s most famous circus magazine! Here’s the full review:


CIRCUS MANIA by Douglas McPherson
review by Mort Gamble
(White Tops Sept/Oct)

If the title of this exploration of Great Britain’s circus world is to be believed, the shows of that island nation are a bit on the wild and wacky side. McPherson’s book, however, comes across as a more thoughtful, restrained treatment of the British circus tradition, past and present. There’s nothing crazy about people earnestly carrying on a performing arts tradition, even if they do step out of the bounds or the normal, by outsiders’ standards, to do it. Outside observer McPherson is impressed.
Watching the Valez Brothers Wheel of Death act, McPherson realizes his fascination with circus performers “and the mysterious glue that binds them to their life of peril. They are, there is no doubt, a breed apart... they seem to exist for no other purpose than to make the impossible seem possible.” It’s easy to dismiss that statement as trite, but it’s helpful to remember that he is writing for a more general audience, not circus fans, not historians or scholars.
His book is a balancing act itself as an overview of circus history, tradition, contemporary formats and modern issues of management - including Britain’s struggles with vociferous animal rights protesters. It’s an inside view from the outside and, if anything, demonstrates the universality of the circus mind and spirit. As he quotes one circus owner, it’s about “the excitement of watching someone attempt something they may not actually be able to do.”
The British circus tradition predates America’s. Entrepreneur Philip Astley - like John Bill Ricketts in this country - built his early circus around horsemanship, adding clowns, acrobats and other acts. Well-known circus names like Smart, Chipperfield and Bertram Mills brought size, fame and fortune to the English circus tradition. Recent years have been less grand as shows abandoned their exotic animals and some took on other forms, morphing into the adult-only, the freaky, the water-worldly, the scary - circus escaping into the witness protection programme of cirque or stage production.
Some tradition big top shows have soldiered on, even daring to bring back their elephants, and

Martin Lacey's
Great British Circus
"Circus undiluted and unashamed."

McPherson gives a nod to them when he listens, at Martin Lacey’s Great British Circus, to the stirring march of Entrance of the Gladiators, breathes in the narcotic of sawdust, trampled grass and animals, and finds himself emotionally involved: “This is circus, undiluted and unashamed. It’s down, it’s marginalized, and there’s not much of it left... but it’s alive, it’s powerful and it will live on.”
Circus Mania lacks the streetwise wit of a Bill Ballantine, functioning more like the industry observations of a David Lewis Hammarstrom. As an overview of the circus in Great Britain, it has value in illustrating a diverse entertainment tradition that may be unfamiliar to Americans. McPherson clearly admires the heroics of circus performers and, equally, the grit of circus managers who find ways to keep going despite the times. He laments that animal protesters, bent on “bullying and intimidating” have missed a good show and concludes on a hopeful note about the positive role of live, physical circus in a digital age.
There is nothing fake about staying alive while training nature’s perfect killing machine - the tiger - he writes. Similarly, in the authenticity of circus life and legend, what you see is only part of what you get. He means to take us into that world for a closer look.

Click here to buy the new, updated 2nd Edition of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus!

Circus Mania
in the papers

Click here to read a dozen reviews of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus.