Clowns, stilts, glamour and circus as it was

Enjoy a trip to the circus of yesteryear with these pics from

the archives of Southampton's Daily Echo.

Click here to read about the day Thomas Chipperfield put his head in the mouth of the wrong alligator!

Circus Programmes

Find fabulous examples of
 Circus Programmes
 and Circus Posters
throughout the
Circus Mania blog

The Greatest (Art) Show on Earth

The atmosphere of the circus has long inspired writers, filmmakers... and artists. It's now the inspiration for an exhibition of work by more than 20 illustrators from the Dawn Chorus Collective.

For one week only from Wednesday 18 Sept (private viewing for the industry) until Saturday 21 Sept, 9am - 7pm, the show is at The Gallery on the Corner, 115 Battersea Park Road, London SW8 4BU.

Details: www.greatestshowonearthshow.wordpress.com

One of the works by
Emma Block

National Centre for Circus Arts - A history in pictures



Juliette Hardy-Donaldson
training when Circus Space was just a dusty space.
Read her story in Circus Mania

The Generating Chamber and the Combustion Chamber are perfect names for the main training areas of the former Circus Space - now the National Centre for Circus Arts and the UK’s only school to offer a BA (Honours) degree in Circus Arts. They suggest places where explosive performances may be generated.


Wind back a hundred years, however, and the names of those towering rooms had a more literal meaning. The building that currently houses London’s university of circus was formerly the Shoreditch Electricity Generating Station, where household rubbish was burnt to power the surrounding area.

Circus Space
when the Generating Chamber generated
electricity

When Circus Space moved in, twenty years ago, the building had lay derelict for half a century. Juliette Hardy-Donaldson was among those who helped clear out decades of accumulated ash and pigeon droppings, and swung on the trapeze in what was still a building site - “Fighting the pigeons for air space.”

These pictures are from those pioneering days.

You can read the full story of Circus Space, in the words of those who teach and trained there, in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

Risen from the ashes
- the Combustion Chamber
when Circus Space moved in

Also in the book, go behind the scenes of...

The Circus of Horrors!

Circus Mondao!

The UK’s oldest circus building!

Gerry Cottle’s Wookey Hole Circus School!

The BBC’s circus sitcom, Big Top!

The Chinese State Circus!

The trapeze net goes up!

Meet:

Britain’s funniest clowns!

Britain’s oldest circus family!

The UK’s last tiger trainer!

Learn:

The history of the circus!

The story of clowning!

The superstitions of the big top!

The secret language of the circus!

And much, much more, in what the Mail on Sunday called “A brilliant account of a vanishing art form.”

Click here to buy the new updated 2nd Edition f Circus Mania on Amazon!

For more on the future of the National Centre for Circus Arts, and in particular what the future holds for the graduates of its degree course, click to read my article: So you've got a degree in circus, what next?

Douglas McPherson, author, launches the first edition
of Circus Mania at Circus Space with
Gerry Cottle, left, and Dr Haze from Circus of Horrors

Pinders Circus - Two hundred years on the road with Britain's oldest circus family

One of the most interesting people I met while writing Circus Mania was retired ringmaster George Pinder. He gave me this picture of his uncle Tommy, on the road with Pinders Circus in the 1930s, and told me how his family was one of the first to introduce motorised transport to the big top.

“Between the two world wars, we had motor lorries, but we still used horses as well. I remember saying to my dad, ‘Them first lorries you had, how fast did they go?’ Oh, about 12mph or 15mph. ‘So how far behind were the horses when they came in behind the lorries?’ Oh, 15 or 20 minutes. ‘So what did you bother with the lorries for?’ ‘Because you didn’t have to get up at five o’clock in the morning and catch them!’

Pinder comes from one of the oldest families in the circus. Its youngest members, sisters Carol Macmanus and Gracie Timmis run one of the last traditional big top shows still travelling with animals, Circus Mondao.

The following pictures from George’s personal archive provide a trip back in time to when his great-great-grandfather Thomas Ord, a Scottish minister’s son, ran away with a travelling show and went onto to become an equestrian star 200 years ago.

Royal Continental Circus poster, 1926.

Inside the Pinders big top in the 1930s.

The circus in the 1890s.

A poster advertising the horsemanship of Thomas Ord (George’s great-great-grandfather) dated October 25, 1817.

Updated for Circus250!

To read the full story of Britain’s oldest circus family, plus behind-the-scenes visits to all Britain's top circuses, buy Circus Mania from Amazon 








Grand Continental Circus with Pinder and Sons, Dundee, 1926