Reindeer loose in Nottingham!

Not really a circus story, but a reindeer on the run from a supermarket Santa is good enough for me at this time of year.

Merry Christmas from Circus Mania!

Happy 80th Birthday Norman Barrett MBE

Death of a Lion Tamer's Wife

Mai Stephens - died November 27, 2015

Having just reviewed the award-winning documentary Fortune's Wheel, about the life of Irish lion tamer 'Captain' Bill Stephens, it was sad to hear the news that Bill's wife and assistant Mai died yesterday, November 27, at her care home in County Dublin.

Click here to read my review of Joe Lee's film, Fortune's Wheel.

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.

Gandy's Circus in Dudley for Halloween

It's time to break out the skeleton suits for Halloween as Gandy's Circus pitches its big top at the Merry Hill shopping centre, Dudley in the West Midlands, for the half-term holidays and Halloween.

Says producer Phillip Gandy: “Circus as an art form has gone through significant changes in the recent years and it’s uplifting to see there’s still a thirst for live big top productions.

“This production has been a year in the planning so we’re very much looking forward to sharing our brand new family show this half term.”

For tickets and times, call 0843 208 0500.

The double standards of actors who campaign against the circus

Click here to read all about it in The Stage today!

Amanda Holden bitten by lion tamer Thomas Chipperfield

Anyone old enough to remember Johnny Morris being dragged across the Blue Peter studio by a widdling baby elephant will know that animals and live television just don’t mix. So getting Tsavo the lion to kiss his trainer Thomas Chipperfield on This Morning was always going to be touch and go - and it was. As Britain’s last lion tamer puckered up, Tsavo let out a roar and leapt off his pedestal in the other direction.

The 25-year-old Chipperfield wasn’t fazed, however, and calmly told presenter Phillip Schofield that he liked working with big cats because “they’re not machines and can have off days just like the rest of us.”

Appearing in a live link from Swansea, where he’s appearing in An Evening With Lions and Tigers for the rest of this week, Chipperfield then went on to conduct his interview from inside the lion cage, without so much as a glance at the disgruntled lion, who first sat on a nearby pedestal then lay down broodingly on the grass in the background. All of which made Chipperfield look like the bravest man on British television.

So it was no wonder he didn’t take any nonsense from This Morning’s co-host Amanda Holden when she said his animals shouldn’t be kept in captivity. When Holden suggested he’d feel “claustrophobic” and “like a prisoner” if kept in a cage, the lion tamer coolly countered that animals perceive the world in a completely different way to what we do.

Amanda Holden as ringmistress in
BBC sitcom Big Top.

Then, when Holden talked about her work with the animal rights organisation Born Free, Chipperfield went on the offensive and accused her of “double standards” after working with trained animals on the TV show Wild At Heart.

A clearly ruffled Holden harrumphed that the animals she’d worked with were “rescue animals - rescued from people like you.”

But before Schofield could break up the spat between presenter and guest, Chipperfield pointed out that he knew the trainer who had trained them. (see update below)

This was thrilling television, and a reminder of why the crowds have been queuing to see Chipperfield’s show - because an entertainment that involves snarling wild beasts is completely unpredictable; anything can happen.

But full marks to Chipperfield for exposing the double standards of so many celebrities who are quick to partner with organisations like Born Free, PETA and Animal Defenders International in bashing the use of circus animals while many are happy to appear with trained animals on film and in TV shows. (see update below)

Sherlock Holmes star Martin Freeman, for example, recently called on the Prime Minister to ban animals from British circuses, despite appearing with horses in The Hobbit and trained dogs in Sherlock episode The Hounds of the Baskervilles.

Holden, meanwhile, also appears on Britain’s Got Talent, which frequently features performing animals. Earlier this year, she told contestant Marc Metral that he had “made television history” with his ‘talking dog’ Miss Wendy - a trick apparently achieved by fitting a false mouth over the animal’s snout, much to the ire of the RSPCA.

Holden’s BGT co-host Simon Cowell has previously dismissed claims that having animals on BGT is cruel, saying, “God no, I think the opposite! We show animals’ personalities. I think they all have a great time on our show, you can see the dogs are wagging their tails.”

Anyone who’s taken the time to visit An Evening With Lions and Tigers will know that that all Chipperfield does is showcase the natural ability and personalities of his big cats, and that they enjoy the organised play of the training routines as much as any animal on BGT.

Anyone who looks a little deeper, will also realise that circus animals and circus trainers are the first port of call whenever an animal is required for film and TV work.

Actors and television celebrities should know that better than anyone, so isn’t it about time they all stopped bashing the circus and embraced Britain’s last lion tamer as one of their own?

January 2016 update: The animals in Wild At Heart were trained by Alex Larenty, who grew up on Chipperfields Circus. For more on the double standards of actors including Brian Blessed, Alec Baldwin and Roger Moore, who have publicly condemned the circus while working with circus animals on stage and screen, click here to read my article in The Stage. 

January 2017: And in latest news, tiger tamer Thomas tackles former James Bond Roger Moore, the spy who once worked with circus tigers but now wants them banned. Read the full story here.

Douglas McPherson is the author of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus. Click here to read the reviews on Amazon.

10 Reasons why Robert Carlyle and Rhys Ifans are wrong about circus animals

Robert Carlyle

Robert Carlyle and Rhys Ifans are the latest celebrities to call for a ban on wild animals in the circus, with Carlyle writing to the Scottish government on behalf of PETA and Ifans campaigning in Wales for Animal Defenders International. I was brought up to believe it was wrong for animals to perform in circuses, so I understand why many people harbour that instinctive belief. But reading the comments in the press by the aforementioned actors - Carlyle used the words "obscene," "demeaning" and "painful," - I have to wonder whether either has first-hand experience of how circuses care for their animals. Having investigated the matter in great depth for my book, Circus Mania, I changed my mind and would like to present 10 reasons why the show - with animals - should go on.

1/ The Radford Report found no grounds for a ban. In 2006, the last Labour government commissioned a six-month study of circus animals, with full participation by circuses and anti-circus campaigners, and concluded that circuses were as capable as other captive environments, such as zoos, of meeting the welfare needs of the animals in their care.

2/ An earlier study by animal behavourist Dr Marthe Kiley-Worthington found circus animals suffer no stress during performance, training or transportation. The 18-month study, sponsored by the RSPCA and published as Animals in Circuses and Zoos: Chiron’s World? also pointed out ways in which the relationship between animals and trainers could contribute to our scientific understanding of how animals think, learn and perceive the world.

3/ Circuses with wild animals are strictly regulated by a licensing scheme, introduced in 2012, that sees them inspected by vets six times a year (twice unannounced) with the results available online. Every aspect of the animal’s life, diet and accommodation is governed by strict guidelines. Plus, every circus, including animal accommodation, is on continual show to the public.  

4/ Circuses aid conservation through breeding programmes and by raising awareness. It was largely the tricks performed by dolphins in aquariums that convinced the public they were intelligent and worth saving. Animals in the wild are endangered by human predators and shrinking habitats, and live short, dangerous lives. Circus animals receive food, shelter and veterinary care. They live twice as long as their cousins in the wild.

5/ Circus animals lead rewarding lives. Every cat and dog owner knows their pet enjoys playing with humans, and it’s no different for a horse or a lion. Training and performance are organised play, like throwing a stick for a dog or pulling string in front of a cat. Zoos stopped animal performances to distance themselves from circuses, but have reintroduced them because animals benefit from the stimulation. These days they call it ‘enrichment.’

6/ Children are enthralled by circus animals. It’s the only form of entertainment where the under-fives are guaranteed to enjoy themselves as much as their grandparents, making it a cheap day out for all the family. Seeing the skill and intelligence of animals at close quarters can only foster admiration and respect for other species. Even adults will seldom get as close to wild animals as they do in a big top. expectancy

7/ It’s what the public want to see. Unlike most contemporary all-human circus shows, traditional circuses with animals receive no public funding and survive entirely on ticket sales. I’m not sure who was surveyed in the oft-mentioned ‘public consultation’ that found 98% of respondents supported a ban, but it wasn’t circus-goers. The consultation was held during the year I was writing Circus Mania and regularly attending circuses, but I never heard about it. Perhaps it was only publicised by animal rights organisations to their existing supporters?

8/ No other profession is judged by the actions of individuals. There have been 7 prosecutions of circus trainers in 130 years; a tiny minority of the trainers who worked blamelessly in that time. Banning circus animals as a knee-jerk reaction to the case of Anne the elephant would be as ridiculous as banning children’s television presenters because of Jimmy Savile. We have existing laws to deal with individual cases of cruelty.

9/ A ban on circus animals would be the thin end of the wedge because animal rights campaigners have a wider philosophical agenda than animal welfare. The next targets would be zoos and aquariums, horseracing, meat consumption, wool, silk and leather-wearing, medical research and pet ownership. The slogan of the world’s largest animal rights organisation PETA is “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”

10/ The circus is a 250-year-old art form that Britain gave to the world. It was started in London by horse-rider Philip Astley, and although the global success of Cirque du Soleil proves circus can flourish without animals, surely there should be room in the land of its creation for a few well-run and regulated shows that keep alive the entertainment in its most pure form, with a mixture of human and animal acts. Surely that's something that entertainers such as Robert Carlyle and Rhys Ifans should respect.

Douglas McPherson is the author of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus (Peter Owen Publishers)

Crowds queue for Thomas Chipperfield's An Evening of Lions and Tigers in Swansea

Good to see the crowds queuing to see Britain's last lion trainer in An Evening of Lions and Tigers, in these photos from the South Wales Evening Post.

An Evening with Lions and Tigers is in Swansea, just off Junction 45 of the M4 until October 25. Box office: 07821 155513.