Northern Ireland Clown Shortage!

Forget bog rolls and petrol, Northern Ireland is suffering from a shortage of... clowns!

The news comes from David Duffy, co-owner of Duffy's Circus, as Northern Irish circuses return to the road after the lifting of lockdown restrictions, several months of after big tops elsewhere.

"Because the circuses in England and Europe have been operational for the past six months, that huge pool of EU artists are already back at work  and we haven't been able to get visas for non-EU artists," said Duffy, who has resorted to advertising for trainee clowns without experience.

"We're trying to reach out to any folks who feel that they could give it a go," he said.

So what does it take to be a Joey?

You have to be really adaptable and able to think on your feet, said the circus boss.

"When you go into a circus ring and you've got 700 or 800 people looking at you, then no matter what sort of mood you're in you have to light up that circus ring.

"A clown can be the loneliest place, because you're in there on your own and you have to be able to read your audience. In a few short minutes you have to get a rapport going and interact with them and feed off them."

In England, meanwhile, the Circus of Horrors has adapted to the fuel crisis by having Anastasia Sawicka pull her van to a filling station with her hair - a publicity stunt that got the show's current tour into the national press.

The Horrors also called on their KillerKlown to scare panic buyers away from the pumps!

With Halloween on the way, click here to check out the Circus Mania guide to the history of scary clowns!

Death of a Lion Tamer's Wife: Mai Stephens 1924 - 2015

Mai Stephens, who has died aged 91, brought glamour to the act of Ireland’s most famous lion tamer, her husband, the self-styled ‘Captain’ Bill Stephens. Her most dangerous stunt was bending over a rack of sharp knives while a lion leapt over her.

Because of her dark hair and exotic beauty, Stephens liked to claim his wife came from “the East” - although she came from no further east than East Wall Road, a few streets from where he grew up in the Dublin suburb of Fairview.

She was born Margaret Carton on November 5 1924 and brought up by her grandmother. She met Bill Stephens while they were both in their teens and they married in October 1942.

At the time, Bill was working as a welder by day and playing drums in Billy Carter’s swing band at night. When a big top pitched up beside the Arcadia ballroom where he was playing, he and Mai decided to run away with the circus.

Initially, Bill played in the circus band, but soon acquired a lion cub called Sultan from a performer who was leaving the show. With no previous experience, he trained the animal as if it were a dog and went on to develop a unique act that mixed lions with Alsatians. Mai, meanwhile, walked around the ring draped with snakes.

Stephens modelled himself on Clyde Beatty, the whip-cracking big cat tamer of America’s Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, who was familiar to Irish audiences through movie serials such as The Lost Jungle. Clad in safari-style costumes, the Stephenses travelled Ireland with John Duffy’s Circus in an act called Jungle Capers.


Their stunts included Stephens feeding a lion from his own mouth and a lion leaping through a hoop above Mai’s head. The highlight was a ‘bouncing lions’ routine, performed in a small wagon pushed into the big top by a tractor.

Circus historian Michael Ingoldsby saw the act when he was 10-years-old and describes it as “The most thrilling act I’ve ever seen in the circus. The lions did a wall of death. They ran around the sides of the wagon, and it was rocking from side to side. People were breathless, because you didn’t know if the wagon was going to turn over. You couldn’t tell if Stephens was chasing the lions or the lions were chasing him, and the remarkable thing was, on cue at the end, they just stopped dead.”

When the circus was off the road for the winter, the Stephenses returned to Fairview and kept the lions in a rented shed behind a high street garage on Merville Avenue. On November 11 1951, a lioness called Sleika escaped onto the streets of Dublin, pounced on an apprentice mechanic called Andy Massey and seriously wounded Stephens as he tried to recapture her.

The incident made headlines around the world and led to the couple playing a Christmas season with Chipperfield’s Circus in Dublin. But they also came under financial pressure when Massey sued.
Stephens dreamed of making the big time in America and to increase the appearance of danger in his act went against all advice to buy a particularly ferocious male lion from Dublin Zoo.

On January 27 1953, he and Mai were visited at the winter quarters of Fossett’s Circus by a talent scout from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus - the famed Greatest Show on Earth. Stephens was so keen to impress that he wore a new suit in the lion cage. His male lion failed to recognise his scent in the unfamiliar clothes and mauled him to death in front of his wife.

After her husband’s death, Mai returned to Fairview and took a job as an usherette at the Bohemian cinema. The following year, she met her second husband, Joe Tracy, who worked for the seed and grain merchants Dardis & Dunne. They married in 1959 and lived in a corporation house at 1 East Wall Road, the street where she grew up.

Throughout her second marriage, Mai seldom mentioned her previous life in the circus. Her two children only knew that she was sentimentally attached to a small toy circus set. When a circus came to town, she would park outside and listen to the music but never ventured into the big top.

After a stroke in 2011, Mai was left partially paralysed and unable to speak. She moved into the Marymount Care Centre in Westmanstown, County Dublin. It was there that she was tracked down by filmmaker Joe Lee for a brief but moving final scene in his documentary, Fortune’s Wheel - The Life and Legacy of the Fairview Lion Tamer. Released this year, the doc was named Best Irish Film at the Dublin Film Festival.

Mai Tracy was born November 5 1924 and died November 27, 2015. She is survived by her husband Joe, son Martin and daughter Caroline.

For more tales from the big top, read Circus Mania, the book described by the Mail on Sunday as "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." Click here to read the reviews.

Film Review: Fortune’s Wheel - The story of Irish lion tamer Bill Stephens

On the afternoon of 11 November, 1951, the Fairview Grand was packed with children thrilling to the adventure film Jungle Stampede. Little did they expect to emerge from the cinema to find a real lioness roaming the streets of Dublin.

Such incidents aren’t quickly forgotten, and Joe Lee’s entertaining documentary, Fortune’s Wheel, rounds up a posse of locals, now in their 70s and 80s, who remember it like it was yesterday. Filmed in the streets and gardens where the events took place, their fond testimonies track the escaped cat’s bid for freedom, which at the time made headlines from America to Italy.

The lion was owned by circus star Bill Stephens, and the film goes on to relate how the locally-born former welder came to be keeping lions in the back yard of a suburban high street garage in the first place.

The youngest of nine children, Stephens grew up with a love of music and a love of animals. His mother used to take in stray dogs.

Although he trained as a welder, Stephens soon quit his day job to play drums in Billy Carter’s swing band. He also caused a family rift by marrying a girl who kept snakes. Because of her dark hair and exotic looks, he liked to say Mai was a circus performer “from the East” - although she came from no further east than East Wall Road, a few streets away.

When Duffy’s Circus came to town, however, the couple left with it. At first, Stephens drummed in the circus band, but he soon acquired a lion cub from a performer who was leaving the show, and trained it like a pet dog.

A self-taught trainer, the young Dubliner modelled himself on Clyde Beatty, the whip-cracking star of America’s Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus who was known to Irish audiences through movie serials such as The Lost Jungle.

Clad in a pith helmet, Stephens performed an aggressive ‘bouncing lions’ act in a small beast wagon that was pushed into the ring.

Circus historian Michael Ingoldsby saw the act when he was 10-years-old and describes it as “The most thrilling act I’ve ever seen in the circus. The lions did a wall of death. They ran around the sides and the wagon was rocking from side to side. People were breathless, because you didn’t know if the wagon was going to turn over.”

Stephens had some narrow scrapes, such as the time he put his head in a lion’s mouth, and the lion closed its jaws on him.

But the escaped lion incident when he was wintering in his home town ramped up the trainer's taste for danger. For one thing, he was sued by a young petrol station attendant that the escaped lion pounced on - so he needed money. Second, the blaze of publicity stoked his dreams of hitting the big time in America.

To increase the sense of terror in his act, he purchased a particularly dangerous male lion from Dublin Zoo that everyone warned him against working with. Alas, on the day a Ringling talent scout came to see his act, he was so keen to impress that he wore a new suit, recently acquired for a wedding. The lion didn’t recognise his scent in the unfamiliar garment, and mauled him to death when he was just 29-years-old.

Because of the era he lived in and the limited fame he attained, no performance or interview footage of Stephens features in this doc, just black and white photographs and newspaper clippings, although a recording of the trainer’s voice is heard early on, relating his efforts to recapture his escaped lioness.

Told in a series of talking heads by mostly ordinary people, unknown bystanders to the tale rather than circus stars (although the big top’s Tom Duffy and Herta Fossett are there to relate Stephens’ final days), Lee’s film has the feel of a regional television documentary rather than a big screen biography. But Stephens’ story is no less engaging for that.

In fact, the low key local charm is part of this award-winning documentary’s appeal. Although circus fans will obviously love it for preserving the story of a performer in danger of being forgotten, Fortune's Wheel is more than a circus film. It's the story of a man from an ordinary suburban background who ran away with the circus but never severed his roots from the neighbourhood where he grew up. It’s as much about that community as it is about him; and the lasting impression a not-quite-famous son left upon the people that still live there.

As one resident says with a grin all these years later, “People were proud to have a lion tamer living in Fairview Green. It was an exciting thing to be close to.”

Fortune's Wheel is now available on DVD.

For details of the latest screenings, or to buy the film on DVD click here to visit the Fortune’s Wheel Facebook page.

See also, my review of The Last Circus Elephant.

And my review of The British Circus 1898 - 1972.