Sylvia Théron, Hamburg, 1950

 

The Ghosts of Circus Past - a spooky song for Halloween

A ghostly seaside circus

In a ghostly seaside town

A bleak wind blows backstage

Ringmaster wears a frown

It’s here I met an acrobat

Who loved the travelling life

Turned down her boyfriend’s ring

She didn’t want to be a wife

She thought she had another ten

Years in the lights at least

The next day she slipped and fell

A fatal 30 feet

Now she haunts the dressing rooms

Clowns shiver as they pass

They know they’re in the company

Of the ghosts of circus past

They’ve swept away the sawdust

On which the show was made

Swept away the history

Of the elephant parade

But horses were the reason

That the circus ring is round

And they couldn’t sweep away

Their hoofprints in the ground

A former lion tamer

Sells teas and souvenirs

No tigers in the ring today

There haven’t been for years

But she can still feel their breath

Her skin still bear their scars

Forever in the company company

Of the ghosts of circus past

The clowns are still called Joeys

After Grimaldi, King of Clowns

A sad depressed Victorian

Whose makeup hid his frowns

Today they don’t wear whiteface

Or even a red nose

But they know Grimaldi lingers

Still watching over shows

With a hundred long-dead acrobats

For every living one who soars

While outside in the windy night

A ghostly lion roars

So as you find your ringside seat

Keep an eye on those you pass

For you’re surely in the company

Of the ghosts of circus past

 

Come Alive! The Greatest Showman - Run extended to 30 March 2025

 

Philip Astley, the Father of the Circus in This England

The autumn issue of This England features a page by yours truly on how the Father of the Circus, Philip Astley, is being rediscovered in his hometown of Newcastle-under-Lyme, thanks a 40 year campaign by a family of magicians.

The piece also looks into why modern day circus ushers and ringmasters often wear 18th century military style tunics, dripping with gold braid, and the influence Astley had on the development of the fairground carousel.

It's out now.

 

The Greatest Showman is coming to a Big Top in London

 

Come Alive!, a new musical circus show inspired by the film, The Greatest Showman, will be coming to a 700-seat big top at the Empress Museum in London’s Earls Court, beginning performances on 23 September 2024.

The production, created by Simon Hammerstein (grandson of Oscar) will feature all the songs from the movie in a completely new story, and be performed by a mix of circus artists and West End singers.

Gravity Circus UK tour preview

Circus thrives on the new: New tricks, new spectacles, new blood. The first visit to the UK of Italian show Gravity Circus brings all those things, to refresh once again the more than 250-year-old wonder of a circular ring in a big top.

The show that first turned me on to circus was the Summer Spectacular at the Yarmouth Hippodrome. No small part of what captivated me was the water finale in which the ring was transformed into a pool of synchronised swimmers while an aerial straps artist flew through the surrounding fountains.

The transformation dates from the Hippodrome's construction in 1903, when it was first performed by gaslight. There is a similar attraction at the equally venerable Blackpool Tower Circus.

But surely you couldn't stage a water show in a travelling tent?

The answer is that you can do ANYTHING in a big top!

And while Gravity Circus doesn't run to a swimming pool, it is bringing to the UK a circular ring surrounded by fountains that jet small and large streams of water over the performance space, while a fountain erupts from the middle of the stage.

The visual effect as Amanda Togni flies through the gushing water gives Gravity Circus a look that you won't find in any other UK circus outside of the permanent arenas in Yarmouth and Blackpool - and it's that thrill of the different that a travelling show needs.

Among the stars is Silke Pan, a Swiss artist who embodies the tragedy and triumph of the circus. In 2007, Pan fell from the trapeze, broke her back and was paralysed from the waist down. The devastating injury could not rob her of her circus spirit, however.

Making her UK debut this year, the 50-year-old acrobat enters the ring in a wheelchair and is carried to a pedestal by her partner Didier Dvorak. There, accompanied by the moving playing of an onstage violinist, Pan performs an elegant hand balancing act followed by walking on hand stilts.

Elsewhere in the show is a high-wire troupe, rola-rola, cyr wheel and chair balancing, plus an aerial silk routine accompanied by ground-based ballerinas, wafting sheets of fabric to create an ocean-like effect.

 

The show's finale is a refreshing change from the ubiquitous Globe of Death. There is the thrilling roar of motorbikes, yes, but instead of circling inside a cage, they enter the tent on a ramp, leaping over a ring full of dancers and jugglers and passing through the central fountain while fire erupts in rising balls of flame, from around the edges of the stage. 

Gravity Circus begins its UK tour in Lancing on 26 July and will be touring until 1 September.

Don't miss the chance to see a circus that looks like no other.

 

Barnum is back... in Newbury

The circus is back in town in Newbury, where the Watermill theatre is reviving Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart’s 1980 musical, Barnum.

With circus stunts arranged by Amy Panter and dancing choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing’s Oti Mabuse, the show stars Matt Rawle as America's most famous impresario.

The show runs until 8 September.

 

New book from Showbiz David

David H. Lewis, also known as David Lewis Hammarstrom and the blogger Showbiz David, is America's most diligent and penetrating big top-watcher.

His studies of the sawdust circle include Behind the Big Top and Inside The Changing Circus, both of which are essential reading.

He has also penned captivating memoirs such as Big Top Typewriter, which chronicles his lifetime of circus writing, and Hopelessly Hollywood, the story of his efforts to write a musical hit on Broadway.

Out now, is his latest book, Keep That Day Job! in which he details the no less than 50 occupations he has juggled to pay the bills while chasing his circus and musical theatre dreams. They include:

- Cleaning out rental cars in Oakland, and dining high on Park Avenue a few days later, with New York literary agents Bertha Klausner and Clare Booth Luce. 

- Walking a rail yard by night recording box car numbers, and the next, meeting with French mime Marcel Marceau to discuss a Mother Goose screenplay. 

- Typing out letters for a chemical company in Hollywood, and being handed by the office manager a rave review in Variety of his new musical Those Ringlings.  

He's also viewed the American circus from the inside, as a clown and a press representative, and travelled the globe to critique rings in Russia and China. 

David has a colourful writing voice that zings off the page, and his latest book promises to be every bit as thrilling, insightful and revealing as its predecessors.

Keep That Day Job is available from Amazon, here.

 

Coming to London this autumn...

 

I Ran Away With Cirque du Soleil

How gymnast Lucie Colebeck joined the world’s biggest circus and set a dizzying world record.

The modern circus is a place where sport and show business collide.

While some performers graduate from circus schools, many come to the stage from the upper echelons of competitive gymnastics.

That was the case with tumbler Lucie Colebeck (pictured above) who won world and European medals before joining the cast of Cirque du Soleil.

When the world’s biggest circus company brought its show Alegria to the Royal Albert Hall at the start of this year, Lucie stepped into the spotlight to set a world record for performing 36 continuous back handsprings in 30 seconds. 

The decision to go for the record was sprung on the 27-year-old, who normally does only five of the back flips in a row during the show.

“Guinness World of Records contacted Cirque and said, ‘Do you have anyone who would be interested in breaking a record?’” Lucie remembers. “Our publicist said, ‘I think you could do the record for the most back handsprings in 30 seconds.’ I said ‘Yeah, why not? Let's give it a go!’

“We call them ‘spotters’ and, funnily enough, when we were in Japan, just for fun I decided to see how many spotters I could do, and I got 25 before I stopped. So I knew I could do the minimum that they wanted. But when I did 36 I really surprised myself.

“On the day, I was really excited, and my nerves were going crazy. When I started and got up to ten, I thought, ‘Yeah, I have a good pace.’ 

“I counted to 25 and thought, ‘Great, the lady with the stopwatch hasn’t said stop yet, so I’ve got the minimum that I need.’

“After that, I tried to count, but my body was just going and going and going. I had no control of it.

“When I stopped at 36, the room was still spinning. It took me a good five minutes to sit down and relax and get my head around it.

“To say I have a Guinness Record title is incredible. It’s something I never thought I’d have. To do it in the Royal Albert Hall… as a British person, you can’t get any better than that.”

Lucie began taking gymnastics classes when she was nine. Her potential was quickly spotted.

“I was playing around on the trampoline when a coach said, ‘If you join my tumbling squad I can make you the next best tumbler.’ I trained with him for the next fifteen years.”

Lucie was just 11 when she first competed in her age group in the British championships. She went on to compete at European and world level, winning bronze and silver medals.

All the while, she nurtured a dream of running away with the circus.

“I saw my first Cirque du Soleil show at the Royal Albert Hall in 2009, and it was so cool,” Lucie recalls.

“I’d heard that some tumblers go into Cirque du Soleil. But it wasn’t until I watched Alegria a couple of years later, and there were some tumblers in it, that I thought, ‘Maybe this is something I could do.’ That’s when my dream of joining Cirque came alive.’”

Lucie auditioned for the company in London in 2017.

“I wasn’t ready to retire from competitive sport but I’d heard it was good to get your name on their books,” she says.

The following year, she got a call to say Alegria was being updated for its 25th anniversary, would she like to be part of it?

“I said yes right away. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Lucie grins.

Joining the circus meant moving to its headquarters in Montreal, which the young gymnast found hard.

“I’m a real home girl and it was the first time I’d moved out of my family home.

For the first six months I hated it!” she admits. “I loved what I was doing every day, but I hated being so far from home.”

After a long winter of rehearsals, her happiest moment was when her mum and nan flew to Canada to watch the premier of the revamped Alegria.

“My mum is my biggest fan. In my whole career, she only missed one competition. So to have her at my first show was really emotional,” Lucie says.

Since then, Lucie has travelled throughout North America, South Korea, Japan and Europe.

“I’ve been able to travel to places that I didn’t even dream of going to. The beauty of it is that when I went abroad competing, I wouldn’t see anything apart from the gym and the arena. Now, with a month or more in most venues, we have so much more time to explore the cities we go to.”

Although she is travelling 50 weeks of the year, her homesickness was alleviated by having her partner Amy join her on the road.

“In the beginning, Amy was flying back and forth to see me, but half way through the North American tour she managed to get a job with the show, working front of house, so we’re travelling the world together and having a great life.

“Not many people can say they’ve got their dream job,” Lucie concludes. “I’m able to, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

(Lucie Colebeck picture credit: Ollie Colebeck)

For more tales of life in the circus, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.