Scotland and Ireland ban wild animals from the big top as the traditional circus slowly disappears

Thomas Chipperfield presents the last big cats
to grace Peter Jolly's Circus, in 2014

“I remember the elephants - just.” Those are the words with which I began Circus Mania. From the first line there was a whiff of nostalgia about my survey of the circus world, even though the focus was not on the history of the big top but a journey through the circus scene as it exists today. The Mail on Sunday called the book “A brilliant account of a vanishing art form.” Naturally I was pleased to use the quote in publicity, although some circus aficianados objected to the word “vanishing”. Surely, they argued, the contemporary circus scene is flourishing? A ‘circus hub’ at the Edinburgh Festival and ‘national’ status for the former training school, Circus Space, which became the National Centre for Circus Arts in 2014, reflects a new appreciation for an age-old form of entertainment in today’s arts scene.

But as we enter 2018 - Circus250! - the 250th anniversary of Philip Astley’s first circus, a large part of the circus tradition is vanishing - the tradition of animals as a major part of the traditional circus bill.

The circus was born on horseback - Philip Astley was a trick rider who built his show around equestrian skills. Lions, elephants, sea lions and chimps’ tea parties became, by the mid-20th century part of everyone’s idea of what a circus is.

Today, though, the animals are disappearing fast.

As PT Barnum biopic The Greatest Showman hits cinema screens, the show that bore his name, the 146-year-old Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is no more. Legislation meant it could no longer tour with its elephants and without them it couldn’t sell tickets.

In Britain, meanwhile, just two weeks before the start of Circus250, the Scottish parliament unanimously signed off a ban on wild animals (by which it means all non-native species) in travelling circuses.

Scottish Conservative MSP Donald Cameron said the legislation meant "we will finally and at last truly be able to say Nelly the Elephant has packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus".

It is the first such ban of its kind in the UK, but will it be the last - and will it end with wild animals or prove to be the thin end of a wedge that eventually squeezes even horses - the animal upon which the circus was founded - from a sawdust circle literally designed for four-legged entertainment?

Martin 'Zippo' Burton
(on the right)

Zippos Circus owner Martin Burton, representing the Association of Circus Proprietors, told the Scottish Parliament that a law based on the proposed ethical grounds "will eventually close your zoos".

He said: "The economic impact on animal displays in shopping centres, on displays at outdoors shows of hawks and wild birds, on reindeer and Santa, and eventually zoos will be massive.

"Once you start banning things, particularly on ethical grounds, it is clear that this will spread, because if it's ethically not right to have a wild animal in a circus, then it is ethically not right to have a wild animal appear at a gala or a county show, and it is ethically not right to have a wild animal appear in a shopping centre, and it is ethically not right to have a wild animal appear in a zoo.

"It is clear and logical that that is the only way an ethical ban can go. You can't choose your ethics, you're either going to say it is ethical or it is not ethical."

Burton’s words are being bourn out in Wales, where the Welsh government is currently planning to introduce a new license for Mobile Animal Exhibitions (MAEs). The legislation is aimed at circuses, but because of the difficulty of defining a circus in a way that separates it from other animal exhibitions, the Countryside Alliance and Kennel Club have raised concerns about the effect on other ‘MAEs’ from cattle shows and dog shows to falconry displays.

Across the Irish Sea, the Irish government decreed in November that wild animals would be banned from travelling circuses in Ireland from January 1, 2018.

In England, a ban on wild animals in the big top proposed by David Cameron’s government has so far been staved off with a successful licensing scheme, although the Scottish ban will give fresh ammunition to the animal rights groups pressing for a ban south of the border.

But even without a national ban, local council legislation has reduced the number of ‘wild’ animals in Britain’s big tops to a handful of camels and zebras spread across Peter Jolly’s Circus and Circus Mondao, while only two or three more circuses, such as Zippos, still have even horses or dogs.

The news reminds me of how lucky I was, as a late convert to the appeal of the big top, to visit the Great British Circus during the writing of Circus Mania and be able to report upon the elephants and tigers that I saw there. At the time, it felt like a rare glimpse into a disappearing past. Re-reading that chapter today, with the Great British Circus now five years closed, I wonder if it was the last glimpse of such a circus that any of us will ever see in the UK again.

Is the disappearance of the animals a good thing for the circus? It's an issue I grappled with during the writing of Circus Mania. I was brought up to believe it was a cruel tradition, but as I interviewed animal trainers and show owners and saw more shows, my understanding grew. By the time I wrote a new chapter for the updated 2018 edition of the book and described my visit to Peter Jolly's Circus my opinion on this always contentious subject had changed a lot from the one I had before I saw my first circus with animals. Perhaps yours will, too.

Click here to buy the updated, new edition of Circus Mania and read about my journey through a world that is disappearing fast.

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.

Alex Lacey in circus photo of the month

What a great picture of Alex Lacey, the British star of America's Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus enjoying a cuddle with Mogli the leopard.

Read the story of Alex's tiger-trainer father Martin Lacey and go backstage at his Great British Circus to learn how big cats are trained in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus.

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

The 100-year battle to ban animals in entertainment

How the Daily Mail reported the
return of elephants to the Great British Circus
in 2009

The first calls to ban performing animals were made 100 years ago. In this article that originally appeared in The Stage, I untangle the history of opposition to animals in entertainment.

Animals have been entertaining us for as long as we’ve had professional entertainment. The word ‘circus’ dates from Roman arenas such as the Circus Maximus, where the spectacle ranged from chariot races to exhibitions of exotic breeds from across the empire. The circus as we know it was founded in London in 1768 by trick horse-rider Philip Astley, who augmented equestrian displays with clowns, acrobats and strongmen.

Animals were also part of music hall tradition. Jospeph Grimaldi, the early 19th century pantomime star regarded as the father of clowning, used a trained donkey called Neddy in his act.

The PG Tips chimps were among the most
popular TV stars of the 70s, but times change and the
long-running advertising campaign was eventually dropped.

Retired to a zoo, the chimps, including 42-year-old Choppers,
pictured here, were said to miss human interaction and
found it hard to integrate with other apes. Is that why
she looks so sad? Or does she just want a cuppa?

During the 20th century, animals were used in the film and television industries from the beginning, making stars of Lassie, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Flipper the dolphin.

Part of that tradition seemed destined to disappear when the government announced its plans to ban wild animals in circuses from December 2015. But that now looks unlikely to happen after the much anticipated Wild Animals in Circuses Bill failed to appear in the list of legislation to be brought before Parliament before the next election.

The campaign to outlaw performing animals is not new, however, and neither is the phenomenon of actors and other celebrities using their fame to endorse animal rights groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

The formation of the world’s oldest animal welfare organisation, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), in 1824, led to the Cruelty to Animals acts of 1835 and 1876. The latter was intended to regulate experiments on animals. But concern over the use of animals in science spread to questions about their treatment in entertainment and led to the Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act, 1900.

Jack London
- Pulp novelist who called
for direct action against
circuses with animals

The Performing Animals Defence League was founded in 1914 to campaign against the use of performing animals. It was followed in 1918 by the Jack London Club. The latter was named after American pulp novelist Jack London who called for direct action against animal performances in the forward to his 1917 novel Michael, Brother of Jerry, which focused on alleged cruelty to animals in America. The Jack Londoners, as they were known, picketed circuses in the US and then Britain and Europe throughout the 1920s.

The first attempt at a government ban came in 1921, when Liberal MP Joseph Kenworthy introduced the Performing Animals Prohibition Bill. The bill was unsuccessful, but a select committee was set up to investigate the issue and led to the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act of 1925 which to this day requires that anyone who wishes to perform with an animal in public must possess a licence.

Calls for a ban continued and in 1927, the RSPCA wrote to the Times, asking “Will the public help to abolish this painful form of amusement by refraining from patronising exhibitions in which performing animals have a part?” The letter was signed by a list of public figures and celebrities including playwright George Bernard Shaw and the actress Sybil Thorndike.

Billy Smart's poster from
the heyday of animals in the circus

The 1950s were a boom time for circuses in Britain, and a period when animal acts by far outnumbered tightrope walkers and trapeze artists. The two biggest operators, Billy Smart’s and Chipperfields, filled their 5000-capacity big tops with hundreds of animals from tigers and polar bears to sea lions and giraffes.

Against that background, the Captive Animals Protection Society (CAPS) was founded in 1957 to campaign and demonstrate against the use of animals in circuses and the exotic pet trade. In 1965, CAPS president Lord Somers sponsored a bill in the House of Lords to prohibit the use of performing animals. It was defeated by just 14 votes.

The 1970s saw the emergence of a new animal rights movement spearheaded by philosopher Pete Singer. Whereas previous campaigners had focused on animal welfare, the animal rights lobby sought to end the ownership of animals for entertainment, food, experimentation and products such as leather, by granting them equal rights to humans.

In 1984, husband and wife actors Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna founded the Born Free Foundation, named after the 1966 film Born Free, in which they had starred, to campaign against zoos and circuses.

Since the 1980s, around 200 local authorities have banned performing animals from council-owned show grounds. Circuses were forced to use private land in less accessible locations where animal rights activists often demonstrated at the gates. By the late 90s, most circuses had responded by dispensing with animals. The all-human Moscow State Circus and Chinese State Circus became the most successful big top shows in the UK, while Canada’s globally successful Cirque du Soleil, which had never featured animals, became the biggest producer in circus history.

An audience for animal acts remained, however. Zippos toured for ten years as an all-human circus but eventually introduced horses and dogs because of public demand. More recently, Ashleigh and Pudsey - a dancing dog - was a hit with the public on Britain’s Got Talent.

Dr Marthe Kiley-Worthington's
report on circus animals
Click here for more.

In 1988, the RSPCA sponsored an 18-month study of circuses by Dr Marthe Kiley-Worthington. The society refused to publish the results because she concluded circuses caused animals no distress and could have benefits for conservation, education and science. Kiley-Worthington subsequently published her report in the book Animals in Circuses and Zoos - Chiron’s World? (Aardvark Publishing). In Greek mythology, Chiron was half man, half horse and symbolises the relationship between humans and animals.

In 1999, undercover film made by Animal Defenders International (ADI) led to the conviction of Mary Chipperfield for cruelty to a chimpanzee at the Hampshire farm where she was training animals for film work.

Under pressure to ban circuses from using animals, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) set up the Circus Animals Working Group. The resulting report by Mike Radford, in 2007, concluded that circuses were as capable of meeting the needs of their animals as other captive environments such as zoos, and that there were no welfare reasons for a ban.

My report in The Stage on the Great British Circus
elephant controversy

Further undercover operations by ADI, however, resulted in film of elephants being hit at the Great British Circus in 2009 and a retired elephant, Anne, being beaten by a groom at the winter quarters of Bobby Roberts Super Circus in 2011. Roberts was given a conditional discharge for failing to prevent the groom in the video from abusing the elephant.

Following the large scale media outcry over Anne, animal welfare minister Lord Taylor announced in March 2012 that the government would ban wild animals in circuses from December 2015, with a new licensing and inspection scheme introduced in the interim. Only two companies, Peter Jolly’s Circus and Circus Mondao, applied for and were granted licenses, with shows such as Zippos unaffected since they use only domestic animals.

The Stage
- The issue this article
originally appeared in.

Animal rights groups such as CAPs criticised the government for delaying the legislation necessary to bring in the ban, and when it emerged in June this year that the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill won’t be debated before the next election, its future was put in doubt.

After a hundred years of controversy, however, calls for a ban are unlikely to go away, and Britain’s stance on the matter will be closely watched by animal trainers and animal rights groups around the world. Both sides believe a ban in Britain, where circus was invented, could create a domino effect in Europe and America. And with the film and television industries largely dependent on circuses for their trained animals, that could have implications for the future of all animals in entertainment.


The 100-Year Battle To Ban Performing Animals - Timeline

1914 - Performing Animals Defence League founded.

1921 - Joseph Kenworthy MP introduces unsuccessful Performing Animals Prohibition Bill.

1925 - Performing Animals (Regulation) Act introduces licenses for performing with animals in public.

1957 - Captive Animals Protection Society founded.

Born Free
The film about a lion that gave its name
to an animal rights group.

1984 - Zoo Check Campaign, later Born Free Foundation, founded by Born Free stars Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers.

1980s - Many local councils ban circus animals from municipal show grounds.

1999 - Mary Chipperfield convicted of cruelty after undercover investigation by Animal Defenders International (ADI).

2000 - The Performing Animals Welfare Standards International (PAWSI) founded to promote animal welfare in audio-visual industries.

2006 - Classical Circus Association founded to represent circuses with animals.

2007 - DEFRA-commissioned Radford Report finds no welfare grounds to ban animals in circuses.

2009 - ADI releases undercover film of elephants being hit at Great British Circus.

2009 - Bolivia becomes first country to ban all animals in circuses.

2011 - Media outcry over ADI film of Anne the elephant being beaten at winter quarters of Bobby Roberts Super Circus.

2012 - Animal welfare minister Lord Taylor announces ban on wild animals in circuses in 2015 and Circus Licensing Scheme in interim.

2013 - Peter Jolly’s Circus and Circus Mondao become only two UK circuses licensed to use wild animals.

2014 - With the Government's proposed ban on hold until after next year’s general election, Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick introduced a private member's bill under the 10-minute rule on September 3. It was blocked for the 12th time on March 6, 2015.

2015 - Thomas Chipperfield takes to the road in Wales with An Evening With Lions and Tigers.

2016 - The Welsh Assembly promise a ban on wild animals in travelling shows and appoint Professor Stephen Harris to carry out a study, which is expected to be complete by February 2016.

2016 - 10 February. Conservative MP Christopher Chope provides first public indication that the government may be reconsidering a ban, when he tells the Commons that the existing licensing regime has rendered a ban unnecessary. (Details here)

2nd Edition out now!

For more on the ever-thorny subject of animals in the circus, including a behind-the-scenes visit to Circus Mondao, one of only two British circuses licensed to use wild animals, read Circus Mania by Douglas McPherson. "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form," - Mail on Sunday.

Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome summer circus - meet the cast

Going through the archives, I found this great picture of the cast at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, Britain's oldest circus building still used for its original purpose. In the back row, the Flying Neves trapeze troupe - that's their safety net behind them. Below them, from left to right, we have Joseph Micheletty - Diabolist Extraordinaire; rollerskating siblings Alicia and Miguel Peris; aerial straps and German wheel star Denis Remnez; and, in front of them, Ukrainian balancing act the Bio Brothers. At the front are son and father clown team Danny Adams and, in ringmaster guise, Clive Webb, flanked by the Hippodrome Dancers.

The Great Yarmouth Hippodrome
- where the ring becomes a swimming pool

It was this cast that I met when I went backstage at the Hippodrome to write one of the chapters of Circus Mania. So join me in the Hippodrome's spooky 100-year-old corridors to find the Neves family in training and Miguel Peris talking about growing up in the circus; hear the ghost stories; thrill to Danny Adams recreating Houdini's death-defying milk churn escape; watch the circus ring transformed into a pool for synchronised swimming; and go into showman Peter Jay's caravan - which he keeps inside a secret store room.

Elsewhere in the book, come with me beneath the canvas of the Great British Circus to meet tiger trainer Martin Lacey; cringe at the fakirs of the Circus of Horrors; and wonder at the tales of retired ringmaster George Pinder as he relates the history of Britain's oldest circus family.

It's all in Circus Mania - the book the Mail on Sunday called "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." Click here to buy it from Amazon.

The future of the circus - can the big top survive?

My thanks to Mark for buying a copy of Circus Mania and leaving a great review on Amazon (please click here to read half a dozen more reader reviews):

Great interviews underpin the analysis, I was particularly gripped by the accounts of current and ex people of the traditional circus with wild animals. A type of show now almost universally unloved in Britain. Hardly any exist now. The main wild animal show featured in the book has since changed name and removed the wild animals. A good move since that is likely to be law by 2015. A few, like Zippos, continue with horses only but are sometimes met by animal rights activists bearing leaflets showing elephants and tigers.
The elephant not in the room, - why a tent in a field and sawdust ring if there are no animals? Circus will develop differently. The trend is more theatrical, better lighting, music and production. But the skills remain much the same.

What struck me most was Mark's astute comment:

The elephant not in the room, - why a tent in a field and sawdust ring if there are no animals? 

The elephant in the room
My article in The Stage on the return of elephants to
the Great British Circus

Before I wrote Circus Mania I wrote an article in The Stage about the return of elephants to the Great British Circus after a decade-long absence from British big tops. Phoning around for comments, I spoke to members of the Circus Friends Association and well remember hearing comments along the lines of "A circus is not a circus without animals." I think Martin Lacey, director of the Great British Circus, said the same thing himself.

At the time I thought, cynically, 'Really?' But then, I'd been brought up with the idea that training animals to perform in a circus was fundamentally wrong. Furthermore, although I was fast becoming a circus fan, it was the daredevilry of human performers that had drawn me to ringside. In fact, all the circuses I'd seen up until that point were all-human shows performed in theatres. Even the historic Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, where I got my first adult taste of circus magic, was a building and presented a thoroughly contemporary all-human show.

So did circuses really need animals? Cirque du Soleil had become the biggest circus company in history without them.

Inside the big top
- a full house at Zippos

My attitude changed when I went to see the tigers and elephants of the Great British Circus for myself, and the camels, zebra and horses of Circus Mondao a week or so later. I fell under the spell of seeing tigers and elephants at such close quarters. There is something magical about the sight of plumed spotted horses trotting into an atmospherically lit circus ring. There's also a connection with the action in a circus tent that television and film - or even the stage of a traditional theatre - can never reproduce. A big top wraps itself around you and makes you part of its world.

Horses and Sawdust
at Zippos
- the type of act the
circus ring was made for

It was, in fact, my visit to the Great British Circus that prompted me to move from writing articles about the circus to writing a book, Circus Mania, because I felt there was such a powerful story to be told.

During my research I spoke to many current and retired animal trainers and formed a more complex picture of the way animals are trained and treated. Yes, there has been cruelty but no, I don't believe it's inherent or widespread. What came across most from the trainers I spoke to was their deep love of the animals they work with.

But I also came away with the question Mark asks in his review of my book - why a tent in a field if there are no animals? And if animals are eventually banned from the circus (and they've almost disappeared from British circuses already) can the big top survive without them?

The sawdust ring was invented by the father of the modern circus, Philip Astley, for the presentation of galloping horses and it's for such acts that it remains best suited. You couldn't parade elephants and polar bears around in a theatre, so the rougher and more raw setting of a big tent once provided the only viable place to see them.

But without the need for an animal-friendly setting, why swap a cosy theatre seat for the often cold and muddy environment of a tent in a field?

Girls on a bike
- some stunts only fit in a big top
(a picture of the Chinese Stage Circus
from Circus Mania)

My two visits to the Chinese State Circus, first in a theatre and then in a big top, showed me that the tent in a field can still serve a purpose, even if the only 'animals' I saw there were the glittering puppets of the Chinese lion dance. That purpose is the presentation of tricks too big to be staged in a theatre.

In the Chinese big top, as I chronicled in Circus Mania, that was girls performing Astley-style horse-riding tricks but on furiously pedaled bikes, and guys flying off swinging poles the length of telephone poles. The theatre version of the circus had to do without such acts and, although still good, was a paler copy by comparison.

You can't perform the flying trapeze in a theatre, or a wheel of death, or put a human pyramid on a high-wire, because you don't have the height. There's only so much water and goo a clown can throw around in a theatre, too.

In a big top you can do anything. But if the circus is to tempt the public out of theatres and into tents, it won't be a case of 'can do,' but 'must do.'

The big tops that pull crowds without animals will be the ones that give us the big tricks - the Russian swing; the human cannonball; the globe of death. The shows that can put the 'big' in the big top will thrive.

Big acts are expensive, however, and the prospects are grimmer for the small traditional circuses where a few family members gamely turn their hand to several smaller scale tricks. Take away their animals - their one unique selling point - and such circuses may have little left to offer us.

Thomas Chipperfield
presents Britain's last big cats
in a British circus

Click here to read my review of Peter Jolly's Circus - the last in Britain with lions and tigers, and a menagerie of other animals from horses and camel to doves and zebra.

Douglas McPherson is the author of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus (Peter Owen Publishers). 
Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

Circus tigers back in Britain as Thomas Chipperfield joins Peter Jolly's Circus

Tiger, backstage at Jolly's Circus

When Martin Lacey retired from the big cat cage and closed his Great British Circus at the end of last year, I thought it was the last we'd see of lions and tigers under a British big top, especially with a government ban on wild animals in the circus proposed for 2015.

But, having mentioned Thomas Chipperfield's Circus Lion Training Video Diary in a recent post, I'm pleased to report that Chipperfield and his big cat act is currently appearing in the UK with Peter Jolly's Circus.

For this information, I'm grateful to Astley's Legacy, a blog dedicated to arguing the case for animals in circus and countering the claims of animal rights groups who oppose their use.

Philip Astley
The father of
modern circus

Astley's Legacy is an apt name, reminding us that the circus originated with animal acts - the horses of its founding father, the trick rider Philip Astley. The shape and still standard size of the circus ring was determined by Astley as the optimum space to bring his horses to a gallop and create the centrifrugal force that let him stand on their backs. If you're interested in the rights and wrongs of animals in the sawdust circle, I recommend you take a look at the blog, and also search for Chipperfield's lion training videos on YouTube.

Most of all, though, if Jolly's Circus is in your area, I urge you to go along, watch the performance, visit the animals back stage, perhaps grab the chance to ask Chipperfield any questions you have, and make up your mind for yourself.

It was doing just that, in the case of Lacey and his tigers, that helped me to question my previous instinctively held opposition to the use of performing animals and led me to write about the subject in Circus Mania - 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."

Click here to see my pictures of Thomas Chipperfield's big cats backstage at Peter Jolly's Circus. and click here to read my review of Peter Jolly's Circus.

See also my previous posts:
Training Circus Animals - Humane or pain?
Interview with Martin Lacey.
The Elephant in the Room.

Circus Girls and Circus Horses

Sophie Coles
Ring-mistress of the
Great British Circus
where the idea for
Circus Mania
was formed.

My fascination with circus began after meeting aerial silks artiste Eva Garcia, just days before she fell to her death during a performance at Britain’s oldest circus building, the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome.

From there, I embarked on a journey into the circus world, taking every opportunity to review shows and interview performers. But it was not until my visit to the Great British Circus in 2009 that the idea for a book, Circus Mania, fully formed in my mind.

Having before that seen only all-human shows, it was sitting ringside in a proper big top, watching parading horses, camels, elephants and the tigers in their big cage that I caught a true glimpse into the deep history and rich tradition of an art form that began in the UK almost 250 years ago.

Ironically, it was the media storm kicked up by animal rights protestors over the Great British Circus’ reintroduction of elephants to a British circus ring after a ten-year absence that alerted me to the GBC’s existence.

The picture above, of ring-mistress Sophie Coles, is from the souvenir programme that I picked up on that day. Sadly, that programme, and the record of my visit in Circus Mania is now all that remains, the Great British Circus having closed last year, ahead of a new licensing regime and proposed ban on wild animals in circus in 2015. Read the story of my visit in this extract from Circus Mania.

But the GBC was not the only circus with animals soldiering on in the face of protests. A week after my visit, I chanced upon Circus Mondao, a new circus run by two sisters descended from probably Britain’s oldest circus family, with roots in the sawdust circle dating back to the early 1800s. From the Circus Mondao progamme is this picture of ring-mistress Petra Jackson.

Circus Mondao is still on the road, and one of the last places where you can see circus as it used to be. I urge you to go if you get the chance and, whatever your preconceived ideas about animals in circus, defy you not to be moved by the sight of their spotted horses entering the sawdust ring. You can read the story of the company, and my investigation into the truth about animals in circus, in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

Click here to buy the updated 2nd edition of Circus Mania.

And, as they say in the traditional big top: May all your days, be circus days!



10 Facts about Tigers for International Tiger Day!

No one knows more
about tigers than
Martin Lacey
- Read his story in
Circus Mania

July 29, 2018 is International Tiger Day. Here are 10 tiger facts to roar about.




1 All tigers have a marking on their forehead that resembles the Chinese symbol Wang, which translates as ‘king.’



2 A tiger’s stripes are as unique as a fingerprint.



3 A tiger’s tail averages four-feet in length - about half the total length of its body.



4 A tiger’s teeth can grow up to 3 inches long.

Martin Lacey was passing his love and knowledge
of tigers to Helyne Edmonds, but their
Great British Circus is sadly no more.

5 Unlike domestic cats, Tiger eyes have round pupils.



6 A tiger’s night vision is six times greater than a human’s.



7 Tigers don’t purr. They make a chuffing sound through their nostrils.



8 No wild tigers live in Africa. They come from China and Asia.

Circus at its roarest
A Chipperfield tiger backstage at
An Evening with lions and Tigers

9 Tiger cubs can gain up to 100 grams in weight each day.



10 A group of tigers is called a streak.


How do you train a tiger? I got the low-down from two of Britain’s last tiger trainers, Martin Lacey and Helyne Edmonds of the Great British Circus. Read the story of the UK’s last circus with tigers and elephants in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

Or buy direct from Peter Owen Publishers for £10 including postage within the UK (add £2.75 for worldwide orders; sterling only).

Peter Owen Publishers
81 Ridge Road
London N8 9NP

T. 020 8350 1775

"Circus Mania is a brilliant account of a vanishing art form"

- Mail on Sunday

Big cats in the big top
Thomas Chipperfield and Tsavo the lion.

Summer 2015 update

When Martin Lacey closed his Great British Circus at the end of 2012, with a ban on wild animals in the circus due to come into force in 2015, it looked as though the last tigers had left the British big top. At the end of 2013, however, Thomas Chipperfield brought his mixed lion and tiger act across the sea from Ireland and is this year travelling an educational show called An Evening With Lions and Tigers. Click here to see my pictures of him in the ring and backstage. 



The Great British Circus - Views of Martin Lacey book review

The purr-fect leopard-skin
accessory
- a picture from
The Great British Circus
- Views of Martin Lacey

On the walls are paintings of animals. Draped over the furniture are the skins of lions, tigers and zebra. On the mantle-piece are the skulls of two tigers who nearly ate their owner for breakfast. Welcome to the living room of Britain’s last big cat trainer, Martin Lacey.


I wasn’t there, so I’m grateful to biographer David Barnaby for describing Lacey’s home in such detail in his new book The Great British Circus - Views of Martin Lacey (Book Guild).

I have to admit I felt a little let down by the subtitle. I thought it was going to be a book of Lacey’s opinions, which Barnaby had ghost-written. Instead, it’s a straight-forward biography - Barnaby’s views of Lacey, rather than Lacey’s views.

Sadly, too, the book was completed before Lacey’s retirement from the big cat cage at the end of last year.* The closure of his Great British Circus would have nicely rounded off the story of a man who was once one of Britain’s most celebrated animal trainers, having trained the tigers for the Esso adverts and the lions for the London Zoo scene in An American Werewolf in London, and also made regular guest appearances as the animal expert on popular TV show Magpie, but who had become in more recent times one of the most controversial figures of the British circus scene, defiantly presenting the UK’s last big top show with tigers and elephants in an era of continual picketing from animal rights groups.

Personally I found Lacey’s own book, My Life With Lions, a more entertaining read, even though its text is concise and it’s more of a photo collection.

But The Great British Circus nevertheless gives us many anecdotes not in Lacey’s book (including some amusing examples of Lacey’s famously explosive temper) and some nice pictures, including the one above of one of Lacey’s exes taking the circus takings to the bank. I can’t imagine her getting robbed with that cheetah on a lead!

See also:
Read my review of My Life With Lions by Martin Lacey and read my interview with Martin Lacey.

Updated for 2018!

You can also read about my visit to Britain’s last circus with tigers and elephants in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

Click here to Buy Circus Mania from Amazon 

Another of Lacey's ladies... and leopards
A 1975 publicity shot
featured in The Great British Circus
-Views of Martin Lacey

Click here for: 5 Great Circus Books for holiday reading this summer.

Thomas Chipperfield and Tsavo the lion
take to the ring

* At the time of his retirement from the big cat cage, Martin Lacey was the only tiger trainer in a British big top, and with a government ban on wild animals in the circus due to come into force in December 2015, he looked like being the very last. Late in 2013, though, 24-year-old Thomas Chipperfield joined Peter Jolly's Circus with his mixed lion and tiger act, with which he'd previously been working with Tom Duffy's Circus in Ireland, and brought big cats back to Britain. Click here to see my pictures of Chipperfield and his animals in the ring and backstage.

Circus Mania Review in The White Tops

“An inside view from the outside.”

Chelsea McGuffin in Circa
- Read about her
daredevilry and the
behind-the-scenes lives
of many other performers in
Circus Mania

My thanks to Mort Gamble for his gracious and perceptive review of Circus Mania in The White Tops - America’s most famous circus magazine! Here’s the full review:


CIRCUS MANIA by Douglas McPherson
review by Mort Gamble
(White Tops Sept/Oct)

If the title of this exploration of Great Britain’s circus world is to be believed, the shows of that island nation are a bit on the wild and wacky side. McPherson’s book, however, comes across as a more thoughtful, restrained treatment of the British circus tradition, past and present. There’s nothing crazy about people earnestly carrying on a performing arts tradition, even if they do step out of the bounds or the normal, by outsiders’ standards, to do it. Outside observer McPherson is impressed.
Watching the Valez Brothers Wheel of Death act, McPherson realizes his fascination with circus performers “and the mysterious glue that binds them to their life of peril. They are, there is no doubt, a breed apart... they seem to exist for no other purpose than to make the impossible seem possible.” It’s easy to dismiss that statement as trite, but it’s helpful to remember that he is writing for a more general audience, not circus fans, not historians or scholars.
His book is a balancing act itself as an overview of circus history, tradition, contemporary formats and modern issues of management - including Britain’s struggles with vociferous animal rights protesters. It’s an inside view from the outside and, if anything, demonstrates the universality of the circus mind and spirit. As he quotes one circus owner, it’s about “the excitement of watching someone attempt something they may not actually be able to do.”
The British circus tradition predates America’s. Entrepreneur Philip Astley - like John Bill Ricketts in this country - built his early circus around horsemanship, adding clowns, acrobats and other acts. Well-known circus names like Smart, Chipperfield and Bertram Mills brought size, fame and fortune to the English circus tradition. Recent years have been less grand as shows abandoned their exotic animals and some took on other forms, morphing into the adult-only, the freaky, the water-worldly, the scary - circus escaping into the witness protection programme of cirque or stage production.
Some tradition big top shows have soldiered on, even daring to bring back their elephants, and

Martin Lacey's
Great British Circus
"Circus undiluted and unashamed."

McPherson gives a nod to them when he listens, at Martin Lacey’s Great British Circus, to the stirring march of Entrance of the Gladiators, breathes in the narcotic of sawdust, trampled grass and animals, and finds himself emotionally involved: “This is circus, undiluted and unashamed. It’s down, it’s marginalized, and there’s not much of it left... but it’s alive, it’s powerful and it will live on.”
Circus Mania lacks the streetwise wit of a Bill Ballantine, functioning more like the industry observations of a David Lewis Hammarstrom. As an overview of the circus in Great Britain, it has value in illustrating a diverse entertainment tradition that may be unfamiliar to Americans. McPherson clearly admires the heroics of circus performers and, equally, the grit of circus managers who find ways to keep going despite the times. He laments that animal protesters, bent on “bullying and intimidating” have missed a good show and concludes on a hopeful note about the positive role of live, physical circus in a digital age.
There is nothing fake about staying alive while training nature’s perfect killing machine - the tiger - he writes. Similarly, in the authenticity of circus life and legend, what you see is only part of what you get. He means to take us into that world for a closer look.

Click here to buy the new, updated 2nd Edition of Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus!

Circus Mania
in the papers

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