Olympic gold-winner joins Cirque du Soleil

British trampolinist Bryony Page, who won gold at the Paris Olympics has bounced into a new career by joining Cirque du Soleil.

"I love the idea of performing in the show and using trampoline in a different way," said the Poole-based 33-year-old who hopes to be on tour with Soleil next year.

Page will be following in the footsteps of British gymnast Lucie Colebeck whose story I told here.

 

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.

Happy World Circus Day!

To me, this picture of British Cirque du Soleil star Lucie Colebeck (taken by Ollie Colebeck on stage at the Royal Albert Hall this January) really captures the wonder of the circus.

I recently interviewed Lucie for a forthcoming magazine story, and what a story it is! Part sports drama, part theatrical tale and part love story, mixed together with the Montreal magic of the world's biggest circus company.

Stay tuned!

 

Cirque du Soleil breaks world records in London

Setting world records has long been a way for circuses to gain publicity, whether it was the Chinese State Circus balancing the most performers on a bike or the Circus of Horrors suspending the most people over the Thames in a 'human mobile'.

Cirque du Soleil took time out from its current run at the Royal Albert Hall to clock up two new entries into Guinness World of Records.

The UK's Lucie Colebeck, above left, set a new record for 36 back handsprings on a trampoline in 30 seconds.

In the show, she normally does five in a row. Doing so many continuously "felt like flying," she said.

Mongolia's Oyun-Erdene Senge beat her previous record of 21 with 24 contortion roll push-ups in 30 seconds.

What's a contortion roll push-up? First you get yourself into the position in the picture, above right, then you do push-ups!

Easy, right? Well, it is for Senge who said, "I've been doing these push-ups since I was six-years-old. It's part of my daily life."

Cirque du Soleil's show Algeria is at the Royal Albert Hall until 3 March.

 

Cirque du Soleil to set up home in London

Is London about to get a permanent circus building?

Canadian circus giant Cirque du Soleil is in the process of making the capital’s Saville Theatre its UK base.

The theatre, which was turned into a cinema in 1970 has been bought by Yoo Capital which has teamed up with Soleil to restore the 110,000 sq ft, grade II-listed building.

Eric Grilly, president of resident and affiliate show divisions at Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, said “We see a unique opportunity to bring back live entertainment to a beloved venue with fresh content and new ideas.”

Lloyd Lee, managing partner at Yoo Capital, said, “Yoo Capital is thrilled to have the opportunity to restore the theatre’s original purpose as a live performance space in partnership with the world’s most reputable live performers, Cirque du Soleil, who have chosen to explore the potential for the Saville to be their first ever permanent experience in London.”

Before circuses travelled in big tops, they were staged in temporary or permanent buildings. The grandest was Astley's Amphitheatre. Known throughout upmarket society simply as Astley's, the landmark venue was mentioned in novels by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

The last circus building still in use for its original purpose is the Yarmouth Hippodrome. But London may be about to get a new one.

 

Cirque du Soleil's Varekai returns to UK February 2017

Here's the poster for the next Cirque du Soleil production coming to the UK next February. For an in-depth critique of the show on a previous visit, plus the history of Cirque du Soleil, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus.

Edinburgh Fringe Gets Circus Hub But I’d Rather See Some Lions

Zippos star Norman Barrett OBE and his budgies

Circus is in fashion. A certain type of circus, anyway. Two years ago, Britain’s leading circus school attained ‘national’ status when it became the National Centre for Circus Arts. This year, the Edinburgh Fringe will get a £600,000 dedicated Circus Hub that will bring twelve contemporary circus shows to the Scottish city from as far afield as Canada, Australia and the Czech Republic.

According to Ed Bartlam of promoters Underbelly, “We want to create a real focal hub for the very broad genre that is circus and in that present a really high-quality programme of different styles.”

So it was sad to see Bartlam’s co-director Charlie Wood sweepingly dismissing the biggest part of circus’ ‘broad genre,’ and a part that represents nearly 250 years of circus history, in an interview with The Guardian.

“Circus is not necessarily cliched, hack, silly stuff in a big tent,” said Wood. “We’ve tried to get away from the old understanding of what circus is – nasty big tops and animals and hack clowns and so on. Circus can mean something, it can have a narrative, it can be theatrical and it can have fantastic skills in it.”

During the research for my book Circus Mania, I experienced what is indeed the ‘broad genre’ of circus, from the big budget spectacle of Cirque du Soleil to the blood-splattered Circus of Horrors and small scale companies such as Australia's Circa which is more typical of the type of circus found of the festival circuit (you can see Circa at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival later this month).

There’s no doubt that modern circus can be good. Of the acts appearing at the Circus Hub, Canada’s Cirque Alfonse wowed London in 2013 with the hugely accessible and enjoyable lumberjack circus, Timber! (Click here to read about it)

But, sad to say, much ‘narrative’ and ‘theatrical’ contemporary circus has left me yawning. In trying to “mean something,’ it has frequently lost circus’ most vital element, it’s sense of fun.

The magic of the big top

It was my visits to the sort of traditional big top-in-a-field circuses that Wood decries that made my heart beat faster, brought my senses most fully alive and imprinted me with memories that I’ll never forget. Sitting ringside at the now defunct Great British Circus, with grass underfoot and the smell of hotdogs and horses in the air, I marvelled at the immensity of elephants, swishing their trunks about to sniff the scent of the popcorn machine, so close that I leaned back in my seat. The skill and artistry of the tiger trainer was as compelling as that of the acrobats on the static trapeze.

At the still very much extant Circus Mondao, which is run by a family that has been in the circus 200 years, I was transported to a magical plane by the sight of plumed spotted horses cantering through the atmospherically lit sawdust; and reduced to helpless laughter by a soaking wet clown sliding the full diameter of the ring on his belly in a tsunami of spilt water.

Animals and genuinely funny traditional clowns are things contemporary circus would rather forget, but in turning its back on them, in the way Wood does so crassly, it loses its soul and, I would dare to say, a lot of its pulling power. For it’s the traditional circuses that have always existed on box office takings alone while most new circus relies on sponsorship and public funding.

Tsavo, a Chipperfield lion

Last year, only one circus, the deeply traditional Peter Jolly’s, fielded an act I was prepared to drive half way across the country to see: Thomas Chipperfield presenting the last lions and tigers we may ever see in a British big top. No contemporary circus show would have tempted me to travel a fraction of that distance.

The big cats were a roaring success, but predictably attracted roars of disapproval from animal rights protesters. With a long-promised ban on wild animals in the circus looming over our big tops, it seems even traditional circuses would rather go quietly into the night than rage against the dying of the circus lights.

This year, no UK circus has big cats or elephants and the biggest part of circus’ appeal, for me, seems to have left the big top with them.

Zippos, arguably Britain's most popular circus, continues to use its ring for the purpose for which it was designed - the display of horses - and long may they continue to do so. They also have ringmaster Norman Barrett OBE's performing budgies. It was a shame to see the Guardian's article on the Circus Hub take a swipe at them, too: "Circus in 2015 is far removed from memories of doleful clowns squirting water from a flower, sequinned trapeze acts, and Norman Barrett and his performing budgerigars. It’s more physical, edgy and sexy,"  writes Mark Brown.

I'd rather see some lions. But given the choice between Barrett's budgies and one of the 'circus' shows on the Hub's programme, which is thrillingly billed as "A poetic search for inner peace and the liberation of prejudice," I'll take the the budgies.

Read my backstage and ringside journey through the rich and diverse world of circus, talking to showmen, clowns, trapeze artists, sword-swallowers and tiger trainers in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.
Click here to read the 5-star reviews on Amazon.

Cirque du Soleil Kooza preview - Royal Albert Hall, January 7 to February 8

There often seem to be battle lines drawn between contemporary and traditional circus, but as Zippo's Martin Burton put it, the choice shouldn't be between old circus and new circus, just good circus and bad circus.

Cirque du Soleil was largely responsible for the rise of the term cirque and its adoption by a proliferation of companies hoping to grab a little of Soleil’s thunder - and thus was at the forefront of the division between contemporary theatre-based cirque and traditional big top-set circus styles - and audiences, which are often as different as the shows. So I’m pleased to report that Cirque du Soleil's show Kooza, which comes to London's Royal Albert Hall from January 7 to February 8 not only asserts Soleil’s supremacy atop the tree of cirque but is a very accessible and circusy show.

It’s a pity Soleil won’t be pitching the big top - or Grand Chapiteau - of its American travels in Hyde Park, although the in-the-round setting of the Royal Albert Hall is perfect for circus, and circus buildings actually pre-date tents, recalling the atmosphere of Astley’s Amphitheatre in the early 19th century.

A pity, too, that (as far as I know) they won’t be bringing superstar juggler Anthony Gatto who seems to have done that most un-superstar-like thing and retired at the peak of his powers.

But Kooza has many thrills still to offer, including a three-person human pyramid on bicycles on a high-wire; a wheel of death and some charismatic solo trapeze from Darya Vintilova (in the States at least; I guess the cast may change).

On the ground, meanwhile, there’s a charming double act on a single unicycle that works both as ballet - the depiction of a romance between the characters - and gymnastics: the girl standing on the male unicyclist’s head.

Kooza - check your pockets before you leave.

The highlight is a clown pickpocket routine originated by Michael Halvarson. While Soleil is great at doing ‘big,’ it’s compelling to watch a ‘close-up’ act where we can see how the volunteer’s tie is removed with out him realising.

The routine is slickly scripted, with sly lines like “You’re a waste bin, my friend,” as some scrap paper is returned to the victim, and the punch-line: “Don’t forget your Viagra!”

The sketch ends with an exploding police wagon and disappearing trick that would fit perfectly into any big top show.

So yes, cirque can be as accessible as circus.

The only trouble is, having watched all the best bits on YouTube, would I drive 100 miles each way to spend an evening in the Albert Hall?

(And you thought I'd seen it America, didn't you...?)

Big Apple on the Big Screen

Which brings me to New York’s Big Apple Circus. On November 8, the Apple streamed its show live to cinemas across America. US blogger Showbiz David found himself watching it in a near deserted cinema in California, as did his brother in Utah.

In a country as big as America the broadcast offered circus fans a fantastic opportunity to see a show that would normally cost them a tremendous amount in airfares and hotel accommodation - so it's hard to know why so few turned up at the movie houses. Maybe it just wasn't promoted enough and nobody knew about it.

It would be wonderful if the Big Apple extended the favour to the rest of the world. Perhaps the organisers of UK circus festivals should consider augmenting their programmes of visiting acts with live cinema shows of circuses from around the world, letting us watch the gold acts of Monte Carlo, the elephants of Ringling or, indeed, Soleil in Las Vegas.

But can watching a circus in a cinema, or at home on a DVD or YouTube, be as good as sitting ringside? Or could it even be better?

The atmosphere of a big top, with grass under foot and popcorn in the air, has to be experienced first hand. But multiple camera angles and close-ups can offer a better view than the best seat in the house.

The Kooza pickpocket, for example, was enthralling for me because on screen in close-up I could see everything so clearly. Would I have been able to follow the routine as closely from a side seat ten rows back?

Darya Vintilova’s trapeze act was enhanced by the sudden close-ups of her face that let us see the exhilaration in her eyes.

Trapeze
Click here forreview

Circus acts are by their nature often too fast for the eye to fully catch, so might there be a place for the slow-motion action replay? I’ve seen many flying trapeze acts, for example, but watching from the ground has never matched the drama of the trapeze scenes in the (fictional) movie Trapeze, where we’re given a real sense of vertigo.

Finally, while experiencing a show in person may be more atmospheric, not all atmosphere is good atmosphere. Take the ‘atmosphere’ of a tall person sat directly in front of you, a noisy eater to your side and a coughing kid behind you, and the distraction of people fiddling about with their brightly lit phones. How about the queue for the loos and scramble for over-priced refreshments? Or the traffic jam at the car park?

Douglas McPherson
Frankly, he'd rather be at home...

One advantage of traditional circus is that the big top comes to your local town or village. You may not see the biggest or best acts, but you can park easily or go on foot and prices tend to be on the low side, whereas most cirque shows necessitate a trip to a bigger town or city with its attendant cost and bother.

At home, though, you get the best acts in the world without the crowds or hassle and, dare I say it, a volume control and fast forward button - things I often sorely wish for when I’m reviewing shows in person.

Cirque or circus, live or on screen. Ultimately, it’s not a matter of one being better than the other, more that they all have advantages and disadvantages, and they all have a role to play in making all our days circus days.

To read about my visits to some of the wide variety of circus and cirque shows in Britain today - and to hear the stories of the performers and showmen I met backstage, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus. Click here to read the reviews on Amazon.

Has the new worn off new circus? Michael Billington of the Guardian gives La Soiree a lukewarm review

La Soiree

Do you prefer old circus or new? Reviewing the circus-cabaret-burlesque hybrid La Soiree - now in its tenth season in a Speigeltent on  London's Southbank - the Guardian's Michael Billington found himself missing the older style of circus:

"I loved the show’s more daring physical acts. But, although people deride the old-style circus for its exploitation of animals and variety theatre for its tat, they both had a poetry and grace somewhat lacking in this frenetically kaleidoscopic spectacle."

Could it be that 24 years after Cirque du Soleil first visited London, the new is wearing off new circus and the pendulum of taste is swinging back to the traditional sawdust ring?

Read the Guardian's review here.

And for a journey through all the many styles of circus in the UK today - including traditional big top shows with tigers and elephants; circus and ice-skating spectaculars; the cringe-inducing Circus of Horrors; the Butlins-based Cirque du Hilarious; the Speigeltent-set contemporary circus of Circa; and the ancient eastern wonders of the Chinese State Circus - read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

Click here to read the reviews.

Cirque du Soleil's Kooza Preview - Royal Albert Hall Jan 7 - Feb 8

My previous post on Mr Fips Wonder Circus highlighted the division between circus and cirque, the former term being associated with traditional, family-friendly big top shows and the latter with contemporary or progressive theatre-based productions.

It’s a fluid division, of course, and not a battle line. Showman Martin Burton presents Cirque Berserk alongside his traditional Zippos circus and argues that the important question isn’t whether circus is old or new but good or bad.

Katherine Kavanagh, who reviews a tremendous quantity and variety of circus shows on her blog The Circus Diaries rightly commented that shows with cirque in the title can be as accessible as those with circus, and vice versa.

Katherine also mentioned Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza, which comes to London's Royal Albert Hall from January 7 to February 8. Soleil was largely responsible for the rise of the term cirque and its adoption by a proliferation of companies hoping to grab a little of Soleil’s thunder. So I’m pleased to report that Kooza not only asserts Soleil’s supremacy atop the tree of cirque but is a very accessible and circusy show.

It’s a pity Soleil won’t be pitching the big top - or Grand Chapiteau - of its American travels in Hyde Park, although the in-the-round setting of the Royal Albert Hall is perfect for circus, and circus buildings actually pre-date tents, recalling the atmosphere of Astley’s Amphitheatre in the early 19th century.

A pity, too, that (as far as I know) they won’t be bringing superstar juggler Anthony Gatto who seems to have done that most un-superstar-like thing and retired at the peak of his powers.

But Kooza has many thrills still to offer, including a three-person human pyramid on bicycles on a high-wire; a wheel of death and some charismatic solo trapeze from Darya Vintilova (in the States at least; I guess the cast may change).

On the ground, meanwhile, there’s a charming double act on a single unicycle that works both as ballet - the depiction of a romance between the characters - and gymnastics: the girl standing on the male unicyclist’s head.

Kooza - check your pockets before you leave.

The highlight is a clown pickpocket routine originated by Michael Halvarson. While Soleil is great at doing ‘big,’ it’s compelling to watch a ‘close-up’ act where we can see how the volunteer’s tie is removed with out him realising.

The routine is slickly scripted, with sly lines like “You’re a waste bin, my friend,” as some scrap paper is returned to the victim, and the punch-line: “Don’t forget your Viagra!”

The sketch ends with an exploding police wagon and disappearing trick that would fit perfectly into Mr Fips Wonder Circus.

So yes, cirque can be as accessible as circus.

The only trouble is, having watched all the best bits on YouTube, would I drive 100 miles each way to spend an evening in the Albert Hall?

(And you thought I'd seen it America, didn't you...?)

Big Apple on the Big Screen

Which brings me to New York’s Big Apple Circus. On November 8, the Apple streamed its show live to cinemas across America. US blogger Showbiz David found himself watching it in a near deserted cinema in California, as did his brother in Utah.

In a country as big as America the broadcast offered circus fans a fantastic opportunity to see a show that would normally cost them a tremendous amount in airfares and hotel accommodation - so it's hard to know why so few turned up. Maybe it just wasn't promoted enough and nobody knew about it.

It would be wonderful if the Big Apple extended the favour to the rest of the world. Perhaps the organisers of UK circus festivals should consider augmenting their programmes of visiting acts with live cinema shows of circuses from around the world, letting us watch the gold acts of Monte Carlo, the elephants of Ringling or, indeed, Soleil in Las Vegas.

But can watching a circus in a cinema, or at home on a DVD or YouTube, be as good as sitting ringside? Or could it even be better?

The atmosphere of a big top, with grass under foot and popcorn in the air, has to be experienced first hand. But multiple camera angles and close-ups can offer a better view than the best seat in the house.

The Kooza pickpocket, for example, was enthralling for me because on screen in close-up I could see everything so clearly. Would I have been able to follow the routine as closely from a side seat ten rows back?

Darya Vintilova’s trapeze act was enhanced by the sudden close-ups of her face that let us see the exhilaration in her eyes.

Trapeze
Click here forreview

Circus acts are by their nature often too fast for the eye to fully catch, so might there be a place for the slow-motion action replay? I’ve seen many flying trapeze acts, for example, but watching from the ground has never matched the drama of the trapeze scenes in the (fictional) movie Trapeze, where we’re given a real sense of vertigo.

Finally, while experiencing a show in person may be more atmospheric, not all atmosphere is good atmosphere. Take the ‘atmosphere’ of a tall person sat directly in front of you, a noisy eater to your side and a coughing kid behind you, and the distraction of people fiddling about with their brightly lit phones. How about the queue for the loos and scramble for over-priced refreshments? Or the traffic jam at the car park?

Douglas McPherson
Frankly, he'd rather be at home...

One advantage of traditional circus is that the big top comes to your local town or village. You may not see the biggest or best acts, but you can park easily or go on foot and prices tend to be on the low side, whereas most cirque shows necessitate a trip to a bigger town or city with its attendant cost and bother.

At home, though, you get the best acts in the world without the crowds or hassle and, dare I say it, a volume control and fast forward button - things I often sorely wish for when I’m reviewing shows in person.

Cirque or circus, live or on screen. Ultimately, it’s not a matter of one being better than the other, more that they all have advantages and disadvantages, and they all have a role to play in making all our days circus days.

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

Marilyn Monroe in the circus ring

What a beautiful creature!
Oh, and that's Marilyn Monroe riding it...

Following my recent post about Elton John and Rod Stewart visiting Billy Smart Jr in the 70s (click here to read it), I couldn't resist borrowing this picture of Marilyn Monroe on a Ringling Brothers elephant in 1955 from America's most penetrating circus blog Showbiz David.

Princess Margaret escorted to Gerry Cottle's Circus
by big cat trainer Martin Lacey
in the days when circus animals had royal approval.

Showbiz mourns the days when celebrities endorsed the circus with their presence and speculates on the boost the big top would be given if Prince William and Kate took the future King George to a circus. The eyes of the world would be upon them, as it was in the days when Princess Margaret visited Gerry Cottle's circus, right.

But have any of today's showmen had the savvy to invite Wills and Kate to an opening night?

Gerry Cottle was perhaps the last British showman to use celebrities to put his circus in the media spotlight. As well as providing the big top for Saturday evening TV show Seaside Special in the 80s, he employed celebrity ringmasters such as then TV favourite Jeremy Beadle.

Cirque du Soleil hardly need the publicity, but their final UK performances of Dralion this summer would surely be a safe, politically correct bet for the young royal couple to attend. But wouldn't it be great to see Wills and Kate posing with the horses at Zippos or the big cats of Peter Jolly's Circus?

Princess Kate has been applauded by the media for supporting British fashion designers. So why not a great British tradition like the circus, which began here nearly 250 years ago and which grew to spread across the globe as one of our most enduring cultural exports?

Circus bosses - send out those royal invites! Maybe you could follow in the  sawdust footsteps of Pinders Circus, which became Pinders Royal Circus after performing three times before Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle.

Princes Stephanie
Royal patron

Failing that, perhaps circus patron Princess Stephanie could invite the the royal couple to the next Monte Carlo Circus Festival in January 2015.

Circus Mania "captivating and strangely beguiling" says Eastern Daily Press

Circus Mania author Douglas McPherson
interviewed in the
Eastern Daily Press

Roll up, roll up, for a glimpse behind the greasepaint.



In this double-page feature from the Eastern Daily Press, Steve Snelling interviews Douglas McPherson about Circus Mania.

Roll up, roll up, for a glimpse behind
the greasepaint
- Circus Mania featured in the Eastern Daily Press

There was something extraordinary about Eva Garcia that would live in the memory. Exotic and quixotic in the way of so many great circus performers, she seemed the very personification of beauty and bravery as she held the audience at Yarmouth’s Hippodrome spellbound with her grace and gravity-defying aerial ballet.

Eva Garcia
- her life and death in the
sawdust circle was
the inspiration for
Circus Mania

Climbing two bands of silk, she threw figures and struck poses, “letting go with her hands and trusting her weight to the silk” as she rearranged it in loops around her waist, a knee or ankle.

Among those lost in her thrall that day was journalist and writer Douglas McPherson who could scarcely remember his last trip to the circus let alone recall revelling in so many visceral close encounters with performers whose gymnastic displays teetered magnificently “half a heartbeat from disaster” as they somehow contrived to make the “impossible possible.”

To a man more used to reviewing pantomimes, plays and seaside variety shows, the experience was quite literally breathtaking and awe-inspiring.

“I was amazed,” he says. “We’re so used to seeing all this computer trickery in films, but there’s none of that in the circus. It’s right there, for real, and these guys are doing things that just look impossible, and they’re doing it twice a day, making it look easy.”

Still marvelling at Eva’s act, he sought her out afterwards for an interview.

“Because this was my first real interest in the circus, I wanted to find out what made these performers want to do this,” he remembers. She spoke to him candidly about the harsh realities of circus life, the hazards, the injuries and the loneliness, but he also saw in her a rare passion for something that was not so much an entertainment as a way of life.

“The circus was in her blood,” he says. “She was part of a 100-year-old circus family and had travelled all around the world. I was fascinated by the whole lifestyle.”

At 38, the former wire-walker thought she had 10 years of performing ahead of her and, having talked about the changing face of the circus with its far greater emphasis on presentation, she closed with the comment: “You still have to have good tricks, but you don’t have to kill yourself.”

Eva Garcia
in the costume she wore
for her final
performance

A week later, on the day after his article was published, Eva Garcia fell 30 feet to her death in the middle of her act.

“It was a real shock,” he says, “but it brought home to me in the most powerful way imaginable just how much of a matter of life and death the circus can be. It can happen at any moment. It’s a bit like being a pilot. It all looks safe, all those planes floating around in the sky, but one mistake and you have a terrible disaster on your hands. It’s about being on that knife-edge. And the fascinating thing is these people are addicted to it. They love it.”

Something of that fascination infected him, too. From that moment at the Hippodrome, the writer was hooked on the circus. All preconceptions about an entertainment that had long slipped from his radar were swept away by that intoxicating mix of seemingly reckless skill and grand spectacle.

At every opportunity he found himself seeking fresh circus experiences crammed with a dazzling array of weird and wonderful acts. Though he didn’t know it then, he was embarking on a circus odyssey of his own. It was a heady journey into largely uncharted territory in search of the magical spirit of the circus which has culminated in a real page-turner of a book that shines a bright light on a hidden world inhabited by an extraordinary cast of colourful characters.

In McPherson’s captivating Circus Mania, which he has dedicated to Eva Garcia, the Spanish performer who helped fire his imagination, we are treated  to the literary equivalent of a fly-on-the-wall documentary as we go behind the scenes and beneath the surface of circus life to encounter the likes of the Valez Brothers, and their death-flirting routine on two man-size hamster wheels, sword-swallowing Hannibal Helmurto, the Pain Proof Man who proves that he knows rather more about pain than he likes to let on, and a teenage clown called Bippo who is never more serious than when it comes to making people laugh.

Bippo
- the boy who ran away with
the circus. His story is just
one of many in
Circus Mania

“Bippo’s was an amazing story,” says McPherson. “Often when you meet these guys you can’t imagine them doing anything else, and he was a case in point. I was talking to him backstage. He had all his clown gear on and he was totally unselfconscious about it all. It was as if he never wore normal clothes. You think, this guy was born for this life.”

In fact, Bippo, who’s real name is Gareth Ellis, is one of those who is actually living out the ultimate in childhood dreams. For he actually ran away with the circus. What’s more, his parents ran away with him. His dad became a general handyman, his mum took over as the boss’ personal assistant and he started off selling merchandise before progressing to clowning and juggling.

Though he confesses to never having had such an urge himself as a child, McPherson reckons that after years of hanging around circuses and circus people he can see the attraction. “There’s something very different about that world,” he says. “There’s a sense of community and a realisation that it’s a lifestyle, not a job. In other aspects of show business, people still go home and have normal lives in normal houses like anyone else, but when you sign up for the circus you walk away from real life completely.

“You’re living in caravans, travelling all over the place and you have a completely different set of rules. And I think that appeals to a lot of people.”

That said, many performers, like Eva Garcia, are born into the circus. They know nothing else and, no matter what the risks or hardships, they can never imagine doing anything else.

“Various families have been involved for anything up to 200 years,” says McPherson. “It’s been passed down through the generations. Young kids work their way into it and they seldom leave, they seldom turn their backs on it, and most of them certainly aren’t in it for the money.

The Great Yarmouth Hippodrome
- Britain's oldest circus building
where Circus Mania author Douglas McPherson's
journey into the world of
the circus began

“Of course, you see some shows which are phenomenally popular. Companies like the Chinese State Circus and Cirque du Soleil and places like the Yarmouth Hippodrome draw huge crowds. But you can also go and see some of the traditional tent shows and find yourself sitting among half a dozen other people. And it might be the depths of winter, snow piled up outside, when hardly anyone is going to turn up to sit in a freezing cold tent, but these performers are still up there, doing their trapeze acts, risking life and limb. You ask them why and they reply, ‘What else would we do? This is our way of life.’”

During his exploration of the circus in all it’s myriad forms, McPherson has experienced a range of styles both on the grand and the small scale, from the glitzy glamour of the lavish multi-million pound Cirque du Soleil to the raw sawdust magic of the Circus Mondao big top, and from the avant garde artiness of the Spiegeltent in Norwich’s Chapelfield Gardens to the rock’n’roll razzmatazz of Peter Jay’s enduring and endearing family-run, animal-free, water-splashed extravaganzas at Yarmouth’s Hippodrome.

Circus Mania author Douglas McPherson
with Gerry Cottle (left) and Dr Haze from the
Circus of Horrors

He has rubbed shoulders with entrepreneurs such as Gerry Cottle, a worthy successor to the likes of Barnum and Smart, and he has winced at the gurning feats of Captain Dan, the Demon Dwarf, and a ghoulish host of fiendishly clever performers from the macabre, freak show-inspired Circus of Horrors.

All of them find a place and a voice in McPherson’s strangely beguiling examination of a form of entertainment like no other.

And though he never shies away from the continuing concerns over the alleged abuses of animals in circuses, something he saw no evidence of throughout his journalistic survey, his main interest is in the human performers and their ever more daring quest for thrill-seeking stunts.

“These people push themselves to the limit doing really unusual and phenomenal things that you simply don’t see in any other sphere of show business,” he says. “You have all the atmosphere, that other worldliness, and then there’s that pure spectacle. There’s not a show I’ve been to when one of the performers hasn’t done at least one thing I’ve never seen before, something that makes you think, ‘that’s absolutely amazing. How did they do that? Why did they do that to themselves?’”

Circus of Horrors
sword-swallower Hannibal Helmurto
- one of the amazing characters
who's story is told in Circus Mania

Having said all that, he readily acknowledges that there are many people who have a negative perception of circuses. “People see it as being quite old fashioned,” he admits. “Peter Jay will say the same. He hardly uses the word circus  because he wants to present circus-style stunts within a variety show format, and to a certain extent that’s the way circus is going and where a lot of the future lies.”

For now, though, he reckons diversity is what circus is all about, with different strands of circus offering different things to different audiences while sharing a common heritage.

My feeling in reading his book, however, is that for all his admiration at the polished theatricality and potentially lucrative appeal of the shows staged by the likes of Cirque du Soleil and Cirque de Glace, McPherson is more at home in a traditional big top.

He certainly doesn’t disabuse me.

"When you go to the big top, 
it's the real thing. It's like stepping
into the past"
- Circus Mania author
Douglas McPherson

“When you go to see the big tent style tradition show there is a sense that this is the real thing,” he says. “It’s like stepping into the past. You turn up on a windswept common where they’ve got the tent surrounded by lorries and you can’t help thinking, broadly this is as it was hundreds of years ago.

“It’s not television. It’s not film. It’s not theatre. You’re sitting around the ring, maybe on muddy ground, on a plastic patio chair, and all these thrills and stunts are right there in your face. There’s a definite romance to that, an appeal that goes well beyond the safe experience of sitting in a theatre and seeing things performed on a stage. And I think because of the appeal of that, those shows will always survive.”

Furthermore, he hopes that by giving people a glimpse inside what he describes as a “totally unique world,” he can assist in ensuring the appeal of circus in all its guises lives on.

Funny men
- Clive Webb and Danny Adams

“I’d like to think my book might make people just go and re-discover the circus the way I did,” he says. “It’s so easy to forget it’s there. So easy to think it’s just something to take the kids to in the summer holidays, when really it’s something for all age groups and something that will get them fired up about.”

Before closing our interview, I can’t resist asking him what his favourite act was of the many he has gasped or simply gawped at over the past eight years. It proves a tough call and after a slight pause he plumps for a couple of clowns he saw perform at the Yarmouth Hippodrome and who sometimes perform their own show, Circus Hilarious.

“Clive Webb, who was once the phantom flan-flinger in Tiswas, and Danny Adams are such funny people, funnier than anything you’ll see on TV.” he says. “Some people have a good script, but these guys have funniness inside them. The warmth comes out and you can tell they’re really enjoying themselves.

“They’ve got that passion for it which really characterises so many circus people.”

Circus Mania by Douglas McPherson is published by Peter Owen.
Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

15 Circus Facts - A Bluffer's Guide for World Circus Day, 16 April 2022

Circus Mania author
Douglas McPherson
(sorry, just clowning!)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Saturday 16 April, 2022 is the 12th World Circus Day. Roll up, Roll up for the Circus Mania bluffer's guide to circus history and culture with these 15 fabulous facts about the sawdust circle.

Billy Smart's Circus
in the days (1954)
when polar bears and black bears
were a common sight
in the sawdust circle

1 - The word Circus dates from Roman times when arenas such as the Circus Maximus staged chariot races, gladiatorial contests and mock battles.

2 - The modern circus was founded in London by trick horse-rider Philip Astley, who opened his Amphitheatre of Equestrian Arts in London, in 1768.

3 - Astley’s rival Charles Hughes was the first to use the word circus in the modern sense when he founded the Royal Circus.

4 - A standard circus ring is 42-feet in diameter.

5 - Clowns are nicknamed Joeys after 19th century pantomime star Joseph Grimaldi.

6 - Leotards are named after the first star of the flying trapeze, Jules Leotard.

The 5 Talos
were the stars of Bertram Mills Circus
at Olympia in 1952

7 - The word jumbo, meaning large, entered the English language because of Jumbo, an 11-foot-tall elephant that the American showman PT Barnum bought from London Zoo.

8 - The traditional circus theme music is called Entrance of the Gladiators.

9 - Charlie Cairoli was the first clown to appear on This Is Your Life.

10 - Chinese acrobats first appeared in European circuses in 1866.

11 - Cirque du Soleil was created as part of 1984’s celebrations to mark the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s discovery of Canada.

12 - Circus Space, in London, is the UK’s only training facility to offer a BA (hons) degree in circus arts.

13 - The first American circus was founded by John Bill Ricketts in Philadelphia.

14 - A ‘Josser’ is an outsider who joins the circus.

15 - According to circus superstition, it’s bad luck to wear green in the ring.

For more on the history of circus, and the lives of today’s performers, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus by Douglas McPherson.

“Circus Mania is a brilliant account of a vanishing art form.”
- Mail on Sunday.

“The Greatest Show on Earth... in a Book!”
- World’s Fair.

Click here to buy the paperback or ebook from Amazon.

And may all your days be circus days!

A Degree in Circus Arts - National Centre For Circus Arts graduates talk about their training and their future

Unemployment rates among actors and dancers are notoriously high, but it's a different story in the circus. In the following article, which originally appeared in The Stage, I asked recent graduates of the fomer Circus Space - now the National Centre for Circus Arts - and former students now performing at the highest level worldwide, how Britain's only degree course in circus arts prepared them for the world of work.

Degree students at Circus Space

Lynn Scott performs an act with a crystal ball, tilting her limbs to roll the orb around her body as if it were attached to her skin by magnetism. But if we could look into that crystal ball, what future would we see for Scott and the other students who graduated from Circus Space this year?
In times gone by, running away to join a circus meant serving a gruelling apprenticeship mucking out the animals and putting up posters in the hope that one of the performers may deign to teach you a few tricks and grant you a turn in the spotlight.
Today, it’s more common to enter the industry through formal training. But how well does attaining a BA (Hons) Degree in circus arts from Circus Space - now the National Centre for Circus Arts and the only UK school to teach the subject to degree level - prepare students for the world of employment?
According to aerial hoop performer Ben Brown, who graduated this summer, “Most of the teachers are working professionals, so you learn a lot about professionalism, how to work with directors and what prices you should set for individual clients.”
Circus Space is also the best place to hear about auditions, either through adverts on the school’s website or by networking with circus artists who use the Hoxton-based facility to train, adds Brown, who signed a contract for seven months work in a Singapore holiday resort shortly before graduating.
According to joint chief executive Jane Rice-Bowen, “All of the course is focused on ensuring that the students have all the tools they need to be employed.”
That includes helping students create their own website and providing them with professionally shot photographs and DVDs.
“In the third year, we work with students on a project called the Deutsche Bank Award for Circus which provides a bursary of £10,000 for a student or group of students to take a piece of work forward,” Rice-Bowen adds.

Inside Circus Space

Previous winners include Kaveh Rahnama and Lauren Hendry who formed So and So Circus and used the bursary to buy a van and equipment and put together a national tour of their show, Introducing... The Hot Dots!
“But even the students who don’t win will have been shown how to put together a business plan and given the skills they might need one day to make an application to the Arts Council,” says Rice-Bowen.
Katherine Would, who graduated in 2011, points out that the graduation show attracts talent scouts from leading circus companies and agents and leads many students to their first job.
“Acrobat Productions is a fantastic agency that saw me and booked me for many fantastic jobs whilst guiding and advising me as a performer,” says Would, who trained as an aerialist after a background in elite gymnastics.
She was also added to Cirque du Soleil’s database of potential talent as a result of the graduation show and is currently appearing in Las Vegas in the Soleil show The Beatles LOVE.
“The degree course helped me get the job by giving me a varied skill base and strong aerial training,” says Would.
LJ Marles is another 2011 graduate currently working internationally, in the touring show Traces by Canadian company Les 7 Doigts de la Main (7 Fingers).
“Two students from my year are also working with 7 Fingers, but in a different show. Another is working with another Canadian company, Cirque Eloize,” says Marles, who is about to begin work on a new 7 Fingers production in Montreal.
“I’m not sure any university can prepare you for the world of work,” says Marles, who went to Circus Space from a background in street dance. “We had professional circus performers, previous graduates and agents come in to talk to us and share their experiences, which was very helpful, but you’re never really prepared. Situations and issues arise which you have to figure out for yourself and you gain experience that way - which, unfortunately, is the best way.”
For Marles, the training was more important than the degree at the end of it: “When you go to auditions or apply for jobs they ask to see what you can do, not your degree.”

Rising from the dust
- Training when Circus Space
was still a building site

Marles’ advice to students is “Start promoting yourself before you graduate so that people know you will be available and you can have some work as soon as you graduate. I didn’t do that and so it took a while before I had any job offers. My first job after graduating was actually at Circus Space. They had an event for a book signing and wanted some circus performers, so me and a few others from my year took part.”
Rice-Bowen agrees that in terms of getting work a formal qualification is less important than the training. “But, once you’ve finished your performing career and maybe want to move into teaching or directing, having a degree will be incredibly useful. It shows that you’ve trained to a very high standard.”
The market for circus skills is constantly changing, says Rice-Bowen. “Last year was a bumper year because of the Olympics. There are fewer circus artists being booked for product launches and parties than there were a few years ago, but there’s been an increase in demand for stage work, particularly in small to mid-scale theatres.”

The Barely Methodical Troupe
- Formed at the NCCA
and appearing at Underbelly
Festival in 2015

Because of shifting market trends, Rice-Bowen expects most graduates to have a varied portfolio career: “They may tour with a company for a season, then come back to Circus Space and do some teaching. They may be devising their own work and supplementing it with cabaret. Then they may do an advert or an arena show with a pop star.”
Few graduates go into traditional tenting circus. But for some the call of sawdust and spangles will always be there.
“One girl came to us with a Phd in astrophysics,” says Rice-Bowen. “She trained to be an aerialist and went on to tour around Ireland with a very traditional circus as an aerialist and ringmistress.”
Whichever sector students go into, Rice-Bowen reckons the prospects for long term employment are good.
“We track our students through the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey, carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and find that three years after graduating 93% of our students are working in circus. That’s significantly higher than for actors or dancers.”
Marles warns prospective students that life in the circus isn’t easy. “Prepare to sweat and be in pain most of the time. But if you’re worried about a lack of work, then I would tell you not to worry. There are plenty of jobs in corporate events, festivals and abroad if you have a good enough skill level. Also, you will have the most fun ever!”

For the story of how Circus Space was founded in a former Victorian power station, and many other stories from the world of circus, read Circus Mania by Douglas McPherson - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus!

Click here to buy Circus Mania - the book the Mail on Sunday called "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form."