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.

Circus Mondao - inside the real big top with Britain's oldest circus family

Circus Mondao in the Weekly News

Going through the archives, I found the above full-page article that I wrote for the Weekly News shortly before Circus Mania came out. The BBC's new circus comedy series Big Top, starring Ruth Madoc and Amanda Holden, had just debuted on television, so it seemed a good time to take a look inside the real big top of Circus Mondao. Run by sisters Carol MacManus and Gracie Timmis, who's family have been in the circus since the early 1800s, the traditional show was spending Christmas at the Elvenden Estate on the edge of Norfolk's Thetford Forest.

I was pleased with the photo selection, including the shot of Carol, ringmistress Petra Jackson and Gracie's daughters riding horses in a My Fair Lady routine. Sitting at ring side as the spotted horses came into the spotlights was one of the magical memories of the night I saw them there. It's also good to see the picture of the circus' camels being exercised on Whitby beach - proof that a circus animal's life isn't purely one of confinement. On the day I visited Circus Mondao in Elvenden, Petra had just returned from taking the camels for a long run through the Forest. Not a walk - "proper camel running," she proudly reported.

Another striking memory from Elvenden was of young clown Bippo sliding almost the whole width of the ring on his belly during a gloriously wet and messy slosh routine. He must have froze in the weeks to come, because soon after my visit the snow fell, heavily, and stayed throughout the Christmas period. It must have been tough on the performers, because the tent was none too warm when I was there. But as Carol said, when I asked her about working over the holiday season, their only day off Christmas Day itself, "This is our life. If we weren't working, what else would we do?"

Little did I know that during that chilly yuletide, love was blossoming beneath the snow-capped canopy of the light-bedecked big top. Bippo had met German Wheel star Lucy Ladbrooke in a previous engagement at the Yarmouth Hippodrome. They'd kept up a romance by phone as work took Lucy to a holiday resort in Turkey. Back from Europe, she got a job at Elvendon, dressed as an elf and selling Christmas trees so the couple could be together.

The following season, she joined Circus Mondao and, later that year I was able to write a follow-up piece in the Weekly News about Bippo's proposal in the circus ring.

From circus ring to wedding ring
Bippo pops the question

Read the full story of Britain's oldest circus family and Bippo, the boy who ran away with the circus, in Circus Mania, described by the Mail on Sunday as "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form."

Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

Click here to read my review of the Circus Mondao pantomime!

Zippos rides into Scotland - Roman style!

Nicky de Neumann
riding Roman style

The word circus dates from ancient Rome when arenas such as the Circus Maximus were host to hair-raising chariot races.

Zippos will be bringing a touch of the Roman hippodrome to the modern circus when it arrives in Glasgow this week, in the form of Nicky de Neumann’s daredevil horse-riding.

Nicky, seen here riding Roman style, with a foot on each horse, grew up in Croydon where her parents apparently couldn’t afford to buy her a pony, so she learned to ride with the local Gypsies. She’s been putting on a wild show ever since, having even appeared as the gun-toting cowgirl Annie Oakley in a wild west display at Euro Disney.

Joining Nicky in the sawdust circle at Glasgow’s Queen’s Park from June 11 - 16, before the Zippos tent moves on to the city’s Victoria Park (18 -23) and then Edinburgh (26 - 30) are Cuban acrobats and a strongman called Hercules who likes having a car driven over his chest.

There will be more stunt riding - on roaring motorbikes - in the Globe of Death, while Britain’s most distinguished ringmaster, Norman Barrett MBE, presents his famous budgies.

To book your seat, call 0871 210 2100.

The Zippos showgirls waiting to go on.

(Both photos: Piet-Hein Out, courtesy of Zippos)

Backstage at Zippos

But what’s life like behind the red velvet curtain of the Zippos big top?

Read an in-depth interview with showman Martin Burton in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

In a chapter on Zippos, Burton talks about:

- His journey from Covent Garden street clown to owner of Britain’s most popular traditional circus.

- The on-going battle with animal rights protestors.

- Behind-the-scenes secrets of BBC1’s Amanda Holden sitcom Big Top.

- His Academy of Circus Arts in which YOU can learn how to be a circus star while travelling around the country putting on shows in a real big top.

Circus Mania is available in paperback or as an ebook from Amazon, or direct from Peter Owen Publishers for £10 including post and packing in the UK (Add £2.75 for overseas orders). Send cheques to:

Peter Owen Publishers
81 Ridge Road
London N8 9NP

And may all your days be circus days!

Coming soon on Circus Mania:
June 15 is World Juggling Day - Read 15 Facts about Juggling on Thursday June 13.
On Monday June 17, roll up, roll up for The Glory Days of Chipperfields - Europe's largest animal circus!

Inside the BBC's Big Top with Amanda Holden

Lights!

Camera!

Action!


Digging through the archives, I found these behind-the-camera pictures from the making of the 2009 BBC 1 circus sitcom Big Top.
Set in the fictional Circus Maestro, the series starred Amanda Holden as ringmistress Lizzie, alongside Ruth Madoc and Tony Robinson. As these pictures show, the location shots were filmed in the big top normally occupied by Zippos' travelling circus school, the Academy of Circus Arts.

Click here to read more on the making and reception of Big Top.

"Brilliant"
- Mail on Sunday

And for the full backstage story of what life's like in the circus, including a chapter on Zippos and the making of the BBC's sitcom Big Top read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

(Big Top photos courtesy of Zippos Circus)

From Zippos to Maestro

My previous post with a picture of a Pinder’s Circus lorry in the 1930s, reminded me of these pictures of more recent circus transport.


When the BBC made the 2009 sitcom Big Top it borrowed Zippos smaller tent, which is normally used by the circus’ travelling Academy of Circus Arts, and some of its lorries, all of which were re-branded with the name of the fictional Circus Maestro.

Starring Amanda Holden, Ruth Madoc and Tony Robinson, Big Top got a reception from the critics as frosty as these wintry scenes.

But although it was a big flop, the show looked fantastic with every backstage scene and caravan interior filled with atmospheric detail.



Click here to read more on the making and critical reception of Big Top.

And buy Circus Mania for a full chapter on the show and an in-depth interview in which Zippos director Martin Burton tells the story of his journey from Covent Garden street clown to owner of Britain's most popular traditional circus.

Visit Zippos!
 www.zipposcircus.co.uk

Click here to read about life in the real big top with Britain's oldest circus family.

Big Flop?

You’d think so, from the custard pies the newspapers have hurled at the Beeb’s new circus sitcom? But is Big Top as bad as the critics would have us believe?

The first thing to say about Big Top is that it looks fantastic. The BBC borrowed Zippos’ number two tent, the smaller one which houses his Circus Academy, for the location filming, and the red, blue and yellow ‘top’ looks fabulous re-branded as Circus Maestro in the establishing shots between scenes.

Everything else in the series is immensely colourful, from the clowns’ costumes to the background detail in the backstage area where most of the action takes place. The caravan interiors are lovingly detailed and convincing, while Amanda Holden, naturally, looks great as ring-mistress, Lizzie.

Get past the eye candy, and it has to be said that the script is pretty silly. The characters are more pantomime than sitcom, the storylines are contrived, and too many of the jokes are thrown in for the sake of it, rather than arising naturally from the characters and situations.

Also, if Boyco the acrobat had been black or Asian instead of Eastern European, his portrayal would have achieved the cheapest ‘race’ laughs since It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
Given such a starry cast and the comic potential of the setting, it’s a pity the producers didn’t make Big Top a more realistic comedy-drama; something like those old classics Lovejoy or Minder, or even Only Fools & Horses, where the laughs came out of broadly drawn but broadly believable characters doing broadly believable things.

(And, I’m sorry Big Top, but having Ruth Madoc’s character fake the kidnapping of her own dog to claim a reward didn’t strike me as something anyone would be likely to do in real life. To put such a story in the first episode set the believability bar worryingly low.)

Given the things that go on in the real life circus world, a more grown-up version of Big Top could have been brilliant.

Zippos circus vehicles and tent gave Big Top
an authentic look

But, having said all that, Big Top goes out at 7.30 when it will catch the kids audience. Kids won’t mind the cartoonish humour and, if it‘s their first taste of what a circus looks like, they may even ask their parents to take them along to the real thing.

That’s the best thing about Big Top. True to director Marcus Mortimer’s promise when I interviewed him earlier in the year (see first entry on this blog) the show may portray circus people as a bunch of clowns, but it doesn’t knock circus.

In the first episode, a member of the public actually tells the Circus Maestro crew that he’s just had the best evening’s entertainment he’s had for years. Given how easy it would have been for Big Top to have tipped a bucket of water down the clown trousers of the real big top, could the Beeb have given circus a better plug?

MEANWHILE.... what’s life like in the real big top? You’ll find out in Circus Mania of course (Order now, from the button up there on the right... etc, etc).

ROLL UP, ROLL UP!

For a sneak peak behind the scenes of the BBC's new circus sitcom.
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Zippos 2nd tent rebranded as Circus Maestro
for the BBC sitcom Big Top
- filmed in deep winter

As I exclusively revealled in The Stage, the circus in BBC1’s new sitcom, Big Top, was very nearly called Zippos, after the real-life circus where it was filmed.

According to Zippos owner, Martin Burton, “I sent a memorable email saying that might be possible unless there were drunken chorus girls and badly behaved clowns. An equally memorable email came back saying, ‘There’s all of that and much more...’ So I said in that case we’d better not call it Zippos, and we re-branded everything as Circus Maestro.”

Starring sitcom royalty Tony Robinson and Ruth Madoc alongside Britain’s Got Talent host Amanda Holden, who stars as ring-mistress Lizzie, Big Top promises to do for circuses what Hi-De-Hi did for holiday camps.

Producer and director Marcus Mortimer, of Big Bear Films, recalls the origins of the show, which will be the flagship of BBC1‘s autumn schedule.

“We’d just had a lot of success with My Hero, about a superhero living near Greenford, and the broadcasters said they’d really like an ensemble piece for a mainstream audience,” says Mortimer, who‘s other successes include Jonathan Creek.

“Our head of development, Susie McIntosh, came to a meeting and said, ‘How about a circus?’ And we all went, ‘Do you know? That’s never been done before.’ Nobody has done a comedy, or even a drama, in this country about a circus. Which is absolutely extraordinary.”

To script the series, Big Bear turned to My Hero writer Daniel Peak.

“Daniel is one of the best of the best of the new, young writers,” says Mortimer. “And, amazingly, he turned out to be a big circus fan.

“The BBC asked us to do a read and at that read we had Amanda Holden, Tony Robinson, John Thomson, who plays the clown... everybody turned up. All the actors loved the parts we wanted them to play and about six days later the controller said, ‘I’ll have a series, please.’


Big Top was filmed in mid-winter... and was sadly
to get a frosty reception from TV critics

“I think people were genuinely fired up by the sense of colour and fun and that element of family entertainment that perhaps hasn’t been around that much lately. A lot of comedies are post-nine o‘clock. They wanted something at 8.30 and we said, ‘Let‘s give ‘em a circus.’”
Inevitably, there are those who wonder if Big Top will portray the circus industry in a bad light.

According to veteran showman Gerry Cottle, “The trouble is that whenever you see a circus on television, the boss is always a crook, with a silver waistcoat and an earring, like David Essex in All The Fun Of The Fair.”

The premise of Big Top is that ring-mistress Lizzie has taken over running the circus because her father, the owner, is in jail for fraud.

The interior of the Zippos tent
redressed as Circus Maestro

But, according to Mortimer, “We’re not having a pop at circuses, in the same way that Hi-De-Hi was not having a pop at holiday camps. Maplin’s Holiday Camp was a great, fun place to be. Big Top is about a circus that is struggling to exist in the current climate, but they always manage to pull something out of the hat because they’re actually a good circus.”
Most of the action in Big Top takes place backstage and was filmed in front of a studio audience.

“It’s a bit like Hi-De-Hi,” says Mortimer. “You didn’t see that much of the knobbly knees competitions. Mostly you were in the offices and chalets. But, of course, you do have to show what goes on in the tent, so we went to Zippos and said, ‘Can we borrow your big top?’”
Burton set up a number of circus stunts for the programme, including a scene in which Amanda Holden is strapped to a revolving knife-thrower’s board.

“She needed a bit of hand-holding before she got involved with that, and I can’t say I blame her,” chuckles Burton, who adopted the name Zippo, from the lighter, as a fire-eating clown and street entertainer, in the 1970s.

Although Burton supplied a knife thrower, he didn’t throw the knives at Amanda for real.
“It’s television,” says Burton. “But we did strap her on and spin her around for real.”
Another action sequence involved a dog chasing John Thompson’s clown onto the flying trapeze, where his feet catch fire.

Amanda Holden and the
cast of Big Top

“It was totally implausible, but we had great fun rigging it,” says Burton. “And before you ask, they booked the dog and no, it couldn’t climb the bloody ladder! If I’d booked the dog, they’d have got a dog that could climb the ladder.”

Bruce Mackinnon had a stunt double for his onscreen tumbling as the Eastern European acrobat Boyco. But he prepared for the role by spending an afternoon walking the tightrope at London’s circus school, Circus Space.

“Once, with my arms flailing like mad, I got from one end to the other. You read stories of old tightrope walkers or trapeze artists, and it’s such a poetic thing to them. So it was nice to get a taste of that - although it’s one thing to be just a couple of feet above the ground and another to know there’s nothing beneath you but death. I think that would be a lot harder... or maybe easier!” the actor chuckles.

Did Zippo share Cottle’s reservations about they way circus would be portrayed in the series?

“I’ve had a very long career working with television companies and I’m very aware that television does what it does in order to get ratings,” says Burton, who also recently lent his tent to a forthcoming episode of the ITV series Married, Single, Other.

“I suspected not everything would be as positive towards circus as I might like and I’m sure there will be a few die-hard circus fans who will be outraged and say it mis-represents circus.

“But I ignore all that. Because the truth of the matter is that if you ask the average six, seven or eight-year-old today what a circus is, they probably don’t know. But I’m sure after this programme they will know. I just think it’s great that circus is back on telly.”

See also: Big Flop?
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For the complete inside story on the making of Big Top, read Circus Mania.

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In the meantime, does anyone know why it’s Zippos rather than Zippo’s?
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Click here to read an interview with Zippos owner Martin Burton as he looks back at 2013.