Review: The Greatest Show On Earth, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, 2026 Edition

 

Singing show guide Lauren Irving introduces
the Greatest Show on Earth

The big news of 2023 was the return of the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show On Earth, revived and reinvented after a six year break. And I have to say I loved it. You can read my review here.

This year sees a revamped iteration of the arena-sized spectacular. Is it bigger and better? Would it wow me just as much?

Well.

Hmm.

Notwithstanding a couple of standout moments that we will come to in a moment, I found it harder to get engaged with, let alone excited by, the show this time around.

Part of that might just be my familiarity with the format. You only once get the excitement of seeing something for the first time, and I seldom enjoy things as much the second time around.

Because this is not in any way a new show. It's the 2023 edition with a few tweaks of the kind that any circus makes to its programme from season to season.

The colourful set, resembling a child's building blocks, is largely the same, and many of the same (excellent) acts are back, including the Navas Troupe's double wheel of death, and the criss-crossing flying trapeze of the Flying Caceras.

Criss-crossing trapeze flyers

Do I detect, though, a slight dialling back of the budget?

The cast seems to have been reduced from 75 to 65, which may not be particularly noticeable.

But I definitely noticed the absence of the raised, illuminated revolving stage that formed a colourful centrepiece to the original show.

That central island, which continually changed colour, added a touch of real pizzazz. It's been replaced by a flat swirling pattern on the floor, which just isn't the same.

In fact, that flat central floor emphasises the fact that we are in a big impersonal sports hall, and magnifies one of my problems with the original production. Ringling may have a hundred year tradition of producing three ring circuses in giant tents, and may have moved into arenas of this type in the 1950s... but for me circus isn't suited to such big spaces.

I prefer the intimacy of a single ring in a cosy big top where everything is up close. Where you can see the sweat on a performer's brow and feel the perilous height of aerialists who are almost directly overhead.

In a cavernous arena, by contrast, all the empty space above and around acrobats reduced by distance to the size of stick men seems to drain any sense of connection to their performances. 

Unless you go equipped with binoculars, it would be hard to appreciate the flexibility of contortionist Jordan McKnight when you can barely see her.

Jordan McKnight

As for Ringling's robot dog... Paulos Circus in the UK has one (in their case it's dressed as a lion) and it works as a fun gimmick trotting around in a traditional size ring. But in the centre of a huge arena... it's just a speck from most seats, and makes no impact at all.

The only Ringling acts that really need such a big space are the criss-crossing flying trapeze, the 34-foot-tall unicycle of Wesley Williams, and Skyler Miser's climatic Ringling Rocket - a human cannonball act that sees her flying 40 feet in the air over a 110 foot distance that spans the entire arena.

All the other acts, I am sure, would have far more impact in a one-ring big top.

Ringling does its best to fight the lack of atmosphere with a lot of music and ensemble dancing, but it often comes off as padding.

Despite these criticisms, however, there are strong acts on display. The truly large-scale acts of Williams and Miser are definite highlights.

Henan Acrobatic Group

The standout moment for me comes during a display of trick bicycle riding by the Henan Acrobatic Group. The finale of their act sees nine cyclists race across the arena in a straight line towards a tenth performer standing in front of them.

At the last moment, he leaps over the head of the first cyclist. Then he runs along the shoulders of the following eight cyclists, using them like stepping stones rushing beneath him, until he lands again on the floor.

I've never seen that before. And it's for those 'never seen that before' moments that you buy a ticket to the Greatest Show on Earth.

Review: The Greatest Show On Earth, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, 2023

The biggest circus story of 2023 was the return of The Greatest Show on Earth. It's a show with 150 years of history behind it. The name is known throughout the world, evoking huge tents with three rings in a golden age of entertainment. Even the names of the men behind it - the Ringling Brothers and PT Barnum - now immortalised on film as The Greatest Showman - are legendary.

But history can also be baggage, anchoring a name or concept in the past while the world changes and fashion moves on. By the 2010s, the Ringling show was on the wrong side of history. The elephant parade that was part of its brand belonged to a time when such things were uncontroversial. By 2016 they were the cause of protest, lawsuits and legislation that made them nonviable in the world of commercial entertainment.

Ringling ditched the elephants but also lost its audience and closed the following year, after 146 years on the road.

Could it come back, after a six year break, with a new all-human look and reclaim its throne as the Greatest Show on Earth?

For me, as a British observer, the show's challenge was filling arenas that seat 20,000 people. Not just filling all those seats, but filling a vast performance space more suited to sports events.

In Europe, we're accustomed to the intimacy of the big top. A circus tent that folds snugly around its spotlit ring is a magical place in its own right. Part of the appeal is the closeness of the action. In the front row, the trapeze artists swing over our heads. The clowns are close enough to squirt us with water. We can see the trembling of a straining muscle and the sweat on a performer's brow. Can a man balancing on a rola-rola be as involving when he's a distant stick figure?

I've watched the Ringling show several times on YouTube videos shot from various positions in the arena and it's clear that some seats feel a long way from the action. If you're at one end of the arena, a hoop jumping act at the far end is hard to even see, let alone feel the physicality in the way that you would if it was happening just feet from you.

At the same time, though, arena seating can offer a new perspective. In the highest seats - and the cheapest, perhaps? - you can sit above the high wire artists and look down on them, instead of looking up at them. You can sit at the level of the flying trapeze platforms and watch the flyers swoop down away from you into the well of the arena. It's a refreshingly different angle and might it even convey a greater sense of height than viewing such acts from the ground?

Ringling, in any case, was staging shows in three-ring tents this size 100 years ago, and moved into arenas in the 1950s, so they (or Feld Entertainment, to credit the current operators) know how to work the space. 

At the start of the show, an impressive number of performers run out to fill the arena floor. 75 of them, although with all the colour and movement it looks like more. Lauren Irving belts out the stirring and catchy theme song, 'Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth' and a blaze of swirling lighting effects quickly whips a substantially full auditorium into a celebratory atmosphere.

The centrepiece of the arena is a raised ring-cum-stage. Shaped like an upturned bowl, it has sloping sides that form a ramp for access and continuously changes colour while displaying moving patterns across all its surfaces. It also has a moving track within its top, allowing some props and performers to revolve while others stand still, and a central disc that can be raised on hydraulic lifts to put the spotlight on a rola-rola or balancing act.

A British circus like Gandeys or Circus Extreme really needs to get one of these illuminated stages, which would look great within a big top, and perhaps even better than it does in an arena.

There are additional raised square stages at each end of the building, which give patrons in the end seats a close-up view of particular acts, such as a very strong skipping act, with several people standing on each others' shoulders while they jump the rope.

The area around the stages is laid out like a skate park that is used to great effect by a team of stunt cyclists, who swarm about, drawing our eye this way and that across the huge space, and turn impressive somersaults as they fly off the scattered ramps.

Comedy is provided by Equivokee, a trio from Ukraine. I'm not going to complain about the lack of red noses and clown make-up, although some traditionalists have. For me, slapstick is about more than make-up, as Laurel and Hardy proved a century ago. The funniest thing on UK TV at the moment is a children's programme called Danny and Mick which stars Danny Adams, Mick Potts and Clive Webb - the stars of Cirque du Hilarious. They dress as normal people while doing all the old clown routines like the wallpaper routine, and make them funnier than ever.

I can't say that Equivokee made much of an impression on me, but I think that was less their fault than the size of the arena. Clowning works best close up when you can see the facial expressions and the twinkle in an eye, and when the jesters are engaging directly with - or picking on! - the audience. At a distance, the humour evaporates within too much space.

Luckily, the Greatest Show on Earth fields plenty of 'big' acts that make good use of the space and height available.

A triangular high wire act by the Lopez Family is apparently a world first. It's such a simple and visually impressive concept that it's a wonder no one has thought of it before. Instead of performers crossing a single wire, there are performers simultaneously doing different things on three wires arranged in a triangle.

It's an act that would fit neatly above the ring of a big top, and which a UK circus should import, although it comes with additional challenges. According to Maria Lopez, the walkers have to cope with vibrations coming from the other wires.

Another big act that perfectly fits the space, and another update on an old theme, is a criss-crossing flying trapeze routine by the Flying Caceres. With two sets of performers crossing paths it literally adds another dimension - depth, towards us and away from us - to an act that usually only draws our eye from side to side.

The Nevas Troupe perform side-by-side on a Double Wheel of Destiny (a pair of what used to be called the Wheel of Death - because people have died performing it). They make impressive leaps atop the spinning contraptions and the release of fireworks adds to the thrills. One performer makes a daring leap between the two wheels and back again. That is the only moment, though, that two wheels is better than one. I found myself watching only one as it was difficult to watch two at the same time, and that made having two a little pointless. That one leap between them aside, I wonder if it would be better to separate the wheels and have one at each end of the arena, so that everyone would get a better view of at least one of them, rather than confining the pair to one end.

Speaking of world firsts, Wesley Williams rides the world's tallest unicycle as confirmed in the Guinness World of Records. The 34-foot-tall contraption, which is the equivalent of sitting astride a three-storey-tall ladder that isn't resting against anything (and is in fact balanced on a wheel!) puts his head right up among the lights in the roof.

It's true that he doesn't ride it very far, just back and forth across the width of the arena. Imagine if he could do a lap of honour around the whole building! He also wears a visible safety wire, but who can blame him?

But what about the absence of animals, which has offended some old school fans? Did I miss the parade of rubber mules that were Ringling's trademark? No, I didn't.

In the past, I have championed animals in the big top, and I enjoyed seeing what will probably be the last elephants and big cats to appear in a British circus. But that was a decade ago. The UK circus has almost entirely moved on from animals and, dare I whisper it among circus fans, it's better for it.

When I began reporting on the circus scene, the industry was up to its neck in the animal issue. There were pickets at the gates and negative press. Even the circuses without animals were compelled to talk about them. The image of the big top was so bad that many people hated circuses without ever seeing one. The ageing proprietors were embattled and embittered. It was no atmosphere in which to stage bright, happy family entertainment. The business was being sucked down like a man dying in quicksand.

Today, with the animals almost entirely gone, and no one even talking about them anymore, the circus feels like it has been reborn. The shows have a clean, modern aesthetic, with stages and floored seating replacing sawdust and mud. The negative image has evaporated, and audiences bring their kids without having to worry about ethics. The atmosphere in the shows and among a new generation of show-runners is invigorated and forward looking. The scene feels like it's thriving.

The new Ringling show feels like that, too, and maybe enough time has passed for it to find a new audience without alienating its old one.

And yet, Ringling hasn't copied Cirque du Soleil, the first big show to pioneer the idea of a circus without animals. The Greatest Show on Earth has not been produced in the style of 'new circus' - a format that once, and perhaps still does, sat apart from the big top kind, with both parties disliking each other in equal measure.

Ringling has not switched camps. There is no story line here, no theme, no message, no attempt to dress circus up as art. It is a traditional circus - perhaps we could say New Traditional - in the sense of providing colourful spectacle and uncomplicated family fun. It's only aim is to entertain, and it does so in abundance.

Although the acts aren't linked, they flow effortlessly from one to the next and the feel-good spirit will send you home singing "Welcome to the Greatest Show on earth!" Reader, I've been singing it all week!

The finale is 'human rocket' Skyler Miser. It's a simple act, but one guaranteed to put a smile on the face. As Skyler steps into her cannon, the whole arena chants the countdown: "Ten, nine, eight..." I even chanted it aloud at home: "Five, four, three..."

Boom! Like the immortal spirit of the circus, Skyler flies the length of the arena and lands on an inflatable crash pad.

Irving signs off with the company's slogan, which has become the salutation of circus worldwide: "May all your days be..." But wait! Instead of saying, "circus days," she says, "may all your days be Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey days!"

Has the image of circus become so tarnished in America that the Felds won't even utter the C-word? The word is conspicuously absent from the description of the show on their website.

This is a circus, however, and one that deserves to put the shine back on the word. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in 2023 it is currently the Greatest Circus on Earth.

For tour dates and tickets, click here.

  

 

Today Ringling, tomorrow your horse, dog, cat and Big Mac

The announcement of Ringling Bros circus closing this year, makes it an apt juncture to re-read the words of tiger tamer Thomas Chipperfield in the Times, above. (Click on the image and it should come up big enough to read)

The end of Ringling has been claimed as a victory by animal rights campaigners. It was their lobbying that led to the legislation in key American cities like Los Angeles that made travelling with an animal show as big as Ringling untenable - and it was when they took the elephants out of the show that people stopped buying tickets.

But where will the victory lead?

As Chipperfield points out, circuses have only ever been the thin end of the wedge. The animal rights movement is an ideology that wants to outlaw zoos, horse riding, pet ownership, meat eating, leather and even wool production. Peta is open about it, although no one seems to listen, or maybe care.

Perhaps one day, when it's their dogs and cats and Big Macs at stake, the world will remember that a lion tamer tried to warn them that it was about much more than circuses all along.

And that the elephants that disappeared from Ringling last year were really canaries in a coal mine.

For more on the issues of animals in the circus, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus. 

If the circus was a country...

I found these words by Jamie Clubb incredibly moving when I first read them, and at a time when the circus is hurting over Ringling‘s closure, now even more so...

Pablo Fanque
Britain's first black
circus showman
1800s

“Think of a society that, on a political basis, is both the capitalist and socialist's dream. Think of a society that employed ex-slaves ahead of everyone else and by its very nature is multicultural. Think of a society that has a hierarchy and even a system ingrained in culture and tradition and yet opened its doors to absolutely anyone who was willing to work hard and provide them with the realistic dream of climbing to the top of their professional tree. 

Mabel Stark
Tiger trainer

“Think of a society that always provided equal opportunities for men and women; a society that had a woman heading a strong family business years before women had the equal vote. Think of a society that provided highly profitable employment and success for the disabled when the rest of society only offered poverty or the workhouse. 

Alex Lacey
English star of Ringling Bros.

"Think of a society that brought animals from all over the world to people who never knew they existed and further worked with institutions that to this day work to conserve these species.  Think of a society that through exposing people to said animals brought awareness of said animals' plight in the wild. 

Billy Smart and Yasmine Smart
meet Princess Margaret

“Think of a culture that entertained audiences of all classes and creeds. Think of a culture that takes the form of a global family accepting leaders as equals of any sex, race, religion, philosophical position, sexual orientation or moderate political persuasion. Think of an institution that boosted the economy, never asked for government support or public funding, that worked off their own steam and integrated themselves into every community they visited, often providing job opportunities. 

“Think of a society that built buildings over a century ago that still stand today and brought elements that are part of the very fabric of modern entertainment. 

Daily Mail

"Then imagine if that culture is shunned by the country that invented it and suffers fashionable prejudice. Imagine if said society's very name prompts disdain to such a degree that it has become accepted as noun for general lowliness. These are my people. This is the circus community."

- Jamie Clubb
Author of The Legend of Salt and Sauce - The Amazing Story of Britain’s Most Famous Elephants
www.jamieclubb.blogspot.co.uk

Jack Ryan 1939 - 2016 - May all his days be circus days

A Ringling programme book

There are some phrases that sound like they were never written, they've just been around forever. One of them is the traditional circus sign-off: "May all your days be circus days!" It sounds like a goodbye handed down through the centuries, but in fact it's a tradition that dates from just 1969.

The words were coined by Ringling Pr man Jack Ryan who sadly died yesterday, 25 August, aged 77.

Remember him next time you hear that famous ringmaster's farewell.

At Ryan's request, in lieu of flowers, donations in his memory should be made to Circus World, Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Ringling Elephants Retire 18 Months Early in May 2016

If you want to see the last appearance of the elephant parade in the Greatest Show on Earth, you'll have to hurry. The pachyderms will be making their final bow this May.

Last year, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus announced it would be phasing out its iconic rubber mules by 2018, with the 11 animals currently in the show, joining the 29 that the company keeps at its Centre for Elephant Conservation in Florida.

Having progressed quicker than anticipated on the building of new accommodation, however, the elies will now leave the show at the end of its current season in May, and a new elephant-free version of the Ringling show will take to the road in July without the trunks that have been its iconic symbol for more than 100 years.

Feld Entertainment, which owns Ringling, cited changing public tastes and new legislation such as a ban on use of the ankus, bullhook or elephant guide in Los Angeles, which would make it impossible for the circus to appear there.

The elephants new role will include assisting in cancer research. The low incidence of cancer in elephants has led some scientists to believe that their blood and DNA could be key to finding a cure for cancer.

The retirement of the Ringling elephants is seen as a victory for animal rights groups that have long picketed the show and called for an end to all animals in circus. But are claims of cruelty justified?

Click here to read my piece on Ringling Elephants and the Ankus - Is it time to let circuses off the hook?

Me and the elephant

Read about my meeting with Britain's last circus elephants in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

How to write a circus book

Ever been told you should write your life story? I expect many circus people have, and many have done so. But if a book is next on your ‘to do’ list as a showman or performer, how best to go about it? Former promoter of the Greatest Show on Earth, Jamie MacVicar wrote The Advance Man about his experiences. In the following article, which appeared originally appeared in Writers Forum, he shares his tips for a successful memoir.


Conversing with Jamie MacVicar after reading The Advance Man feels odd, like meeting your favourite fictional character. Because MacVicar’s adventures promoting the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus - the self-proclaimed Greatest Show on Earth - in the early 70s read less like a memoir than a novel.

Unfolding hour by hour, scene by scene, conversation by conversation, the 650-page narrative gives us a real sense of sitting in offices as advertising deals are hammered out; backstage as unsold tickets are counted; and in “beyond seedy” motel rooms where the pressure builds and eventually takes its toll on a young man thrust into a high-stakes world.

“To write a book you have to be passionate and objective for a long, long time, so you better have something compelling to say,” says MacVicar, who’s book was a finalist for the Marsfield Prize, an American award for arts writing. “Very few people have held the job of circus promoter and to my knowledge no one had ever written a book about it. What I wanted to do in The Advance Man that I hadn’t seen done before was to teach a craft - the marketing of live entertainment - while somehow blending it seamlessly into the personal story. Since most memoirs are reflective, looking back at past events, I decided to write it in the present. I wanted the reader to experience events exactly as I had.”

To create that sense of immediacy, MacVicar advises the aspiring memoirist to use all five senses in their writing: taste, sight, sound, touch and smell.

“Detail makes the reader feel as though they are there,” he explains. “Why just drive across the bridge when you can drive past ‘a little girl sitting on a rail selling worms for 35 cents a box.’ I try to strip down descriptive elements to one or two at most - a sidewalk lifted by an oak tree, a man in a button-down sweater - just enough to trigger the reader’s imagination. It then becomes their story, and will stay with them.”

Asked whether the wealth of detail in The Advance Man stems from a good memory or whether a memoirist is permitted some creative license to fill in the gaps, MacVicar says, “I’m amazed at how much I remembered when I transported myself back in time, heightened I’m sure by the intensity of the period. The important things stay with us.

“I believe you can add colour to evoke a mood - ‘A tractor rumbled by in a swirl of dust, the trees looked barren against the grey sky’ - and you can guess at irrelevant details, like did I sell 500 or 600 tickets at that show twenty years ago?

“But the events and dialogue should be to the best of your recollection, and any historical details should be as chronicled. Our memories are faulty and we can be forgiven for that, but not for a lack of ethics, honest intent and due diligence.”

Although a memoir is by its nature drawn from personal experience, MacVicar’s book is notable for detailed passages on the history of the circus he worked for and the parts of America he visited.

“History and surrounding material that evoke the times give the story depth, and that makes the narrative far richer,” he says. “Context also renders a greater understanding of the actions and decisions of the protagonists. More than most books, a memoir gives the reader an opportunity to reflect on their own lives and what they might have done under similar circumstances.”

To aid his research, he hired a history graduate from his local university who uncovered “golden nuggets” of information, from the crops grown in Ohio during his time there, to a thorough biography of Gargantua, a famed circus gorilla. The author also sought the input of other people in the tale.

“I flew to Savannah, Georgia, and interviewed the head of the advertising agency I’d worked with twenty years earlier. He gave me perspectives and background material about Savannah that were priceless - things I never knew at the time.

“I also sent the manuscript to two of the main characters in the book as well as to the attorney for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, giving them three months to respond. My purpose was twofold: to discover any inaccuracies and to give them a chance to express any concerns before the book was published.”

MacVicar also hired a copy editor and content editor. The former would circle words in red ink with admonitions such as “You’ve used this word four times.” The latter would slash through entire scenes, saying, “This doesn’t move the plot forward.”

“They greatly improved the manuscript, tightening and streamlining the prose while teaching me what to look for myself,” say the author.

According to MacVicar, it’s becoming common for writers to hire their own editors, in America at least: “Agents will often insist on it before presenting your work.” Self-publishing writers are definitely encouraged to employ a professional editor, although MacVicar cautions, “Editors have different approaches. Not all are a good match. I advise asking two or three to do a chapter before deciding who is right for you.”

The Advance Man took eleven years to write, which is about four times longer than the period it describes. Editing and finding a publisher took another four years, and publisher Bear Manor Media took a further two years to bring the book to market.

MacVicar had to fit writing around his day job of running a graphic design firm. But while he would have preferred to complete the book more quickly, he urges all scribes to be patient with the writing process.

“Don’t look at the project as a whole - it’s too overwhelming. All you have to write today is one scene. Take your time. Fame and fortune are ephemeral. Pride in what you produce is permanent.

“I’ve never had a bad writing session because I don’t sit down to write until I know exactly what I am going to say and what I want to achieve. I stop when the going’s good, and then let the subconscious take over. At some point, the words start flowing again and I stop whatever I’m doing and write.”

Influences on his style included Robert Caro’s five-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. “Caro is the master of making the mundane fascinating. But his pacing was particularly instructive. He knows how to build momentum into a paragraph.

“Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar took the leveraged buyout of Nabisco and turned it into a business thriller, introducing me to narrative non-fiction, a style I’ve been drawn to ever since. But it was Errol Flynn’s My Wicked, Wicked Ways that prompted me to write The Advance Man. He wrote it not to be liked or admired, but to look at himself objectively, warts and all. I found that powerful.”

The Advance Man deals unflinchingly with MacVicar’s stress-induced breakdown and the family issues that caused him to overwork.

“Writing about myself, I employed what I call the cringe factor,” he says. “If I wasn’t cringing at times by what I revealed, then I wasn’t doing justice to the story, the reader, and the lessons to be gleaned.”

As for the thorny business of writing about family, which some writers might find inhibiting: “A memoir is personal, so writing about loved ones is usually unavoidable. But a searing portrait can be mitigated by conveying why they may have behaved as they did. Maybe a cousin was a kleptomaniac, but could the lack of attention from a fatherless home have been the cause?”

In other cases, changing names can be a good idea - not least to avoid being sued.

“You might recall thinking someone in your past was an idiot, and while you might not care what he or she thinks about your opinion now, what about his or her spouse and children? Is it necessary to hurt their feelings too? In general, if I portray someone in a negative light, I change their name and description.”

MacVicar’s new book, A Year in a B&B in Banff, is set thirty years after his circus adventure, and describes how a new relationship lead to him running a bed and breakfast in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Both books can be ordered from Amazon.

Click here to read my review of The Adavnce Man.

May All Your Days Be Circus Days

There are some phrases that sound like they were never written, they've just been around forever. One of them is the traditional circus sign-off: "May all your days be circus days!" It sounds like a goodbye handed down through the centuries, but in fact it's a tradition that dates from just 1969.

The words were coined by Ringling Pr man Jack Ryan. Follow him on Facebook at May All Your Days Be Circus Days.

Oh and be sure to like Circus Mania on Facebook, too!

Ringling Elephants and the Ankus - Is it time to let circuses off the hook?

Me and the Elephant
Circus Mania author Douglas McPherson
meets one of the last elephants to
appear in a British circus

The news that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is to phase out its iconic elephant parade has been hailed as a victory for the animal rights groups that have campaigned against them for decades.

But I think the battle has been won in the hearts and minds of legislators rather than the circus-going public, who continue to fill US arenas with audiences of several thousand per show, and who are apparently happy to watch other animals perform, including a lion and tiger act presented by Britain’s Alex Lacey.

As a spokesman for Ringling owners Feld Entertainment put it, “We looked across the legislative landscape and it’s become a patchwork quilt of unnecessary restrictions and prohibitions... we’re not in the business of fighting city hall.”

In short, Los Angeles and some other US cities have either banned or are considering banning the ankus, the traditional tool for guiding elephants. The ankus, also known as an elephant goad or bull-hook is a two or three-foot-long stick with a metal point and hook on one end and is the only means of controlling an elephant in what’s known as free contact management. That is, where elephant and handler are in an unenclosed space such as a street or circus ring. Not using an ankus would be the equivalent of walking a horse through a public space without a rein.

With the ankus outlawed, Ringling has the choice of leaving its elephants out of the show or taking its show out of the city. For an entertainment company that needs to be where the crowds are, that’s a simple decision.

But is banning the ankus justified?

Opponents see the bull-hook as an instrument of pain and punishment. Sadly, there is much video evidence of hooks being used in an abusive way. Fed a diet of such images by animal rights groups, it’s no wonder many legislators and members of the public believe that is the ankus’ only purpose.

Elephant handlers, however, maintain the ankus is a simple guiding tool which, when used correctly, is no more detrimental to an elephant than a horse rider’s crop or spurs, or the bit in a horse’s mouth.

When Anne the elephant was moved from a circus to Longleat safari park, animal rights groups were perturbed to see that her new handlers continued to use the ankus. The park’s director Dr Jonathan Cracknell defended the practise, stating it was “not a tool of domination... but more akin to that of a rope on a horse, used to guide her in the right direction and communicate what we need her to do.”

Zoo elephants have always been trained to facilitate washing, veterinary procedures and movement between enclosures. Traditionally, many have been taught circus tricks or used to give rides to the public, because the physical exercise and mental engagement is good for their health.

Without the ankus, for example, it would be impossible to take an elephant for a long walk in the countryside.

The Management Guidelines for The Welfare of Zoo Animals - Elephants, published by the British & Irish Association of Zoos & Aquariums (BIAZA) sets out how an ankus can be used in conjunction with positive reinforcement and the association with verbal commands to train elephants in a humane way.

For example, to get an elephant to move forward, the handler touches its back leg with the hook. When the elephant moves away from the hook, the action is rewarded with a treat (food) and verbal praise. With repetition, the action eventually becomes associated with a verbal command and the hook is only needed as an occasional prompt to guide direction.

To see the ankus used correctly, watch this video of Willie Thieson, the elephant manager of a zoo in Pittsburgh, showing TV news presenter Sally Wiggin how to use a hook to make an elephant lie down for a veterinary procedure. “The hook is not as sharp as it looks,” Wiggins observes, “and I barely had to touch her to get a response.”

Having interviewed several circus trainers for my book Circus Mania, I tend to believe that most treat their animals well. It’s also probably the case that most innovations in animal training grew from the uncommonly close relationship between circus trainers and their animals. The inventor of the modern circus, horseman Phillip Astley, for example, is said to have used clicker conditioning more than 200 years before it became the current buzzword for training pets.

That little is known about circus training is unsurprising - a magician doesn’t spoil his illusions with a banal explanation. But the secrecy of the circus community has fuelled the suspicion of cruelty. It’s human nature to distrust those who live differently from us and to apply sinister connotations to things we don’t understand.  

With anti-circus campaigners often seeming to have the only voice in the media, perhaps it’s time for circuses to swap mystique for openness, put more emphasis on education and show us how they work with their animals. In turn, perhaps legislators can focus on regulation, the raising of standards and the rooting out of bad apples, rather than taking the simplest option of a ban.

There’s no doubt a large part of the public still wants to see animals up close in a circus ring. Zippos operated an all-human show for ten years before introducing horses and dogs due to public demand. Giffords, the most gentrified circus in Britain, is built around the horse.

Some opponents of circuses with animals draw a distinction between domesticated and wild, forgetting that elephants and camels have been domesticated in their native regions for thousands of years. Besides, is there any difference between training a horse, an elephant or a lion, except in the sense that the circus’ biggest selling point has always been taking things to the extreme and showing us things we would not believe possible.

For more on the always thorny subject of animals in the circus read Circus Mania by Douglas McPherson - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus.

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

Ringling Brothers and Barum and Bailey Advance Clown

Advance Clown Rob Ringling

Reading Jamie MacVicar's enthralling memoir, The Advance Man, it was particularly interesting to read about the adventures of the advance clown, who visits towns ahead of the circus to drum up publicity.

The Advance Man covers a period in the early 70s, but the advance clown is still out there in the form of Rob Lok, alias Rob Ringling.

Rob trained at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus at the age of 17 and 20 years later is still out on the road, promoting the Greatest Show on Earth.

Click here to read my review of The Advance Man.

For more on clowns, including an interview with Britain's funniest clowns, Clive Webb and Danny Adams of Cirque du Hilarious, read 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.

What happens to circus tigers when they retire?

Back in October, Alex Lacey, the English star of America's Greatest Show on Earth - the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus - retired the two oldest tigers in his act, the first two he ever trained and which he has worked with for the past 19 years.

On his Facebook page, the trainer paid tribute to the long-serving cats and reveals their future:

"Tara and India will stay with me and live along side their offspring and the other cats that they have have formed family groups with. They will continue to be included in morning practice sessions and keep the next lot of youngsters "in line" that are currently being trained. They will stay with me and receive the very best veterinary care available from Ringlings veterinary team. The best possible diet and the best possible team of animal carers. Tara and India have been replaced with Bella and Suzy who performed for the first time in a live show this evening and were excellent :)))
Bella is India's daughter. 
Thanks for everything my old girls xx"


Alex Lacey and his Gold Clown-winning brother Martin Lacey Junior are probably the two most accomplished big cat trainers in the world.

It was a visit to the Great British Circus, which was run by their father, Martin Lacey, that inspired me to write my book, Circus Mania. For a chapter on Lacey Sr and the truth about how circus tigers are trained, click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

The Advance Man by Jamie MacVicar - Book review - an inside account of promoting the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus

Most circus memoirs are written by performers or showmen. But it doesn’t matter how good a show is if there’s no audience to see it.

Jamie MacVicar’s book lifts the lid on the life of the promotions men who travel to cities two or three months ahead of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus to make sure arenas that hold 12,000 or 20,000 people are packed night after night for the arrival of the Greatest Show on Earth.

The suit-clad advance men may not be as glamorous as the grease-painted performers, but their work is every bit as high stakes and just as skilled. Their job is not just to buy TV, radio, print and billboard advertising, but to multiply the effect of their cash spend by trading tickets for additional ads and arranging promotions that result in a snowstorm of publicity.

MacVicar shows us this world of modern day hucksterism through the eyes of an ambitious trainee and as his narrative unfolds day-by-day, scene-by-scene and conversation-by-conversation, The Advance Man reads more like a novel than a memoir.

Weaving an atmosphere of immediacy rather than reflection, he gives us the sense of being in the office with these guys as deals are hammered out; in windowless backstage rooms as tickets are counted; and in his “beyond seedy” room at the Piccadilly Inn where the relentless pressure builds.

The book appeals on many levels. Circus fans will enjoy visiting backstage where MacVicar carries Michu, the smallest man in the world, to interviews and gets charmed into giving free tickets to the actor Cary Grant.

Anyone interested in sales and marketing - and anyone charged with promoting a circus today - will get a master class in the nuts and bolts of the game.

There’s also a gripping human story here as the young MacVicar’s endless drive eventually propels him to risk his sanity for his “numbers,” the way the high-wire walkers and lion tamers wager their physical being for applause. And, just like the performers in the ring, for the advance man there’s no safety net.

In any book, it’s not so much the story as the way it’s written that creates a satisfying read and it’s in this area that MacVicar delivers with the zeal that drove him during his time with Ringling.

He goes beyond his personal memories to provide us with well-researched digressions into the history of the show’s founders, the Ringling Brothers and PT Barnum; and some of its stars from Chang and Eng, the original Siamese Twins, to Gargantua, the fabled gorilla.

We get a lengthy reflection on the lives of a previous generation of advance men at the dawn of the 20th century - “Would we have been able to adapt to each other’s world? I’d never know. Would we have liked one another? Undeniably.”

There are also insightful passages on small town life, suburbia and the inner city - all viewed by a traveller not sure if he wants to belong or is glad he doesn’t. Such moments give this book depth and, in places, a kind of poetry. They make it more than a book about the circus but a book about America, with a coming-of-age story thrown in. I was reminded of Steinbeck.

Click here to order The Advance Man from Amazon.

And click here to read an interview with Jamie McVicar about how he wrote The Advance Man.

Circus Stamps

Step right up to get a new set of US postage stamps celebrating the art of the great American circus poster. A set of eight stamps each featuring the 19th century posters of Ringling Bros, Sells-Floto, Al C. Barnes and more was launched on May 5 at where else but the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. 

Of course, it's not the first time the circus has graced a stamp. Here are a couple of British first day covers celebrating Chipperfields Circus in 1983 and Gerry Cottle's Circus in 2002. Oh, and naturally enough, Monaco, home of the International Circus Festival, has produced a circus stamp or two over the years.

For more fabulous circus art and circus posters, click here.

Alex Lacey, his lions and tigers, star in Ringling Brothers Greatest Show on Earth!

Man and beast in purr-fect harmony
Alex Lacey and one of his cats*

In the world of circus, every country has its own speciality. Flying trapeze troupes often come from South America, and springboard acts from Hungary. Britain is most renowned for animal trainers and clowns - ironically, considering this country’s antipathy towards Joeys and circuses with animals.

Ringling star Alex Lacey

So it’s nice to know English big cat trainer Alexander Lacey is currently starring in the world’s most famous circus, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus - the Greatest Show on Earth.

Lacey, who is presenting five lions, six tigers and a leopard, is the son of British circus trainers Martin Lacey and Susan Lacey and grew up in a house where tiger cubs roamed wild.

He was quoted in a Philadelphia newspaper as saying, “My parents loved interacting with the animals. The secret to being an animal trainer is being able to communicate with them... to find out what they like to do. Some cats are good at a couple of movements and some are good at other things. They’re all good at their own things.”

Martin Lacey
- read about his
Great British Circus
in Circus Mania

It was seeing Alex’s dad Martin Lacey in the Great British Circus that inspired me to write Circus Mania.

I’d become fascinated by the daredevilry of human performers after meeting aerial silk artist Eva Garcia just days before she fell and died during a performance at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome. After that I’d taken every opportunity to review circus shows and interview the performers. But all the circuses I’d seen up to that point were modern all-human shows.

When news broke that the Great British Circus was bringing elephants back to the British big top for the first time in a decade, it was amid a blaze of negative publicity. Animal rights protesters were up in arms. But the pictures of the elephants called to me with the promise of a glimpse into an earlier and more circus tradition that I’d witnessed so far, because it was with the trick horse-riding of Phillip Astley that the modern circus began, nearly 250 years ago.

I went along with mixed feelings, because like many people I’d been brought up with the belief that training animals to perform was wrong or cruel. But sitting in a real big top, watching the elephants, horses and Martin Lacey’s tigers told me there was a much more complex story to be told.

Read my personal journey through the circus world, talking to animal trainers, trapeze stars, clowns, sword-swallowers and showmen in Circus Mania, what the Mail on Sunday called “A brilliant account of a vanishing art form.”

Click here to read half a dozen 5-star customer reviews of Circus Mania on Amazon.

Alex Lacey relaxing with the big cats
a picture from My Life With Lions
by Martin Lacey

* The fabulous picture at the top of this post and the one of the left, of Alex Lacey relaxing with a lion and tiger are two of many fantastic circus images in Martin Lacey's book, My Life With Lions. Click here to read my review.

Last chance to see...
Britain's only big cat act
Thomas Chipperfield at
Peter Jolly's Circus

And click here for my pictures of Thomas Chipperfield's big cats - the only such act currently appearing in a British big top.


What happens to circus tigers when they retire? Click here to find out.

Miley Cyrus' sister Noah Cyrus fights Ringling Brothers Circus - but is it just propaganda?

"Don't visit the circus," says Miley Cyrus' little sister
Noah Cyrus.

Poor old Bily Ray Cyrus. As if the country singer fondly remembered for Achy Breaky Heart didn't have enough on his plate with daughter Miley Cyrus stealing the media spotlight, he has another precocious offspring squeezing him out of any limelight that might be left. Miley's little sister, 13-year-old Noah Cyrus has made a Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) video protesting against the treatment of circus elephants. In the video, which is targeted at school children and uses emotive cartoons of tearful baby elephants, Cyrus compares their trainers with playground bullies. She's also spearheading a campaign asking Nashville schools to boycott class visits to Ringling Brothers when the circus visits Music City, Tennessee.

Never mind the jumbos, I say, how about a campaign to revive Billy Ray Cyrus’ career?

But there’s a serious issue here. Peta are using extremely emotive images to indoctrinate children too young to question what they are seeing. And is the message true, or just propaganda?

A Chipperfield tiger

There’s no doubt that some circus trainers have and do use pain to train animals. But there is also plenty of evidence that others train with reward and patience and have relationships with their animals built on mutual trust and affection. Click here to see how lion trainer Thomas Chipperfield works.

Every pet owner knows their animal can be trained to perform simple tasks such as sitting, staying and fetching with no cruelty involved. Horses have to be trained to be ridden. Guide dogs for the blind, sheep dogs and police dogs are all trained to a sophisticated level, yet no one accuses their trainers of cruelty. So why should circuses trainers be singled out?

They may work with more exotic creatures, but the whole purpose of circus is to present something out of the ordinary. A trained tiger is more exciting to see than a trained dog, but does that mean its training methods should be regarded as more suspect, or that a big cat should find working with humans more objectionable than a canine?

Training with patience and kindness
a scene from Thomas Chipperfield's
lion training video diary.
Watch it on YouTube.

Many animals from chimps to dolphins seem to enjoy interacting with humans, and let’s not forget that circus staple the elephant has long been domesticated and used, in its native region, in the same way as horses and oxen in other countries.

In my experience, children attending circuses with animals have been universally enthralled by the opportunity to see exotic animals paraded in such close proximity - and in our increasingly sanitised world where everything is experienced through a screen, that’s a rare and valuable opportunity to learn something about the relationship between humans and the natural world.

So, while Noah Cyrus is asking schools to boycott Ringling, I’d say this to teachers and parents: take your children to the circus, but do more than that. For a truly educational experience, organise a backstage visit to see the animals and invite a trainer to give a talk to the class.

Encourage your children to ask questions and form their own judgement based on what they see for themselves rather than to blindly believe everything they are told.

CIRCUS MANIA - A Personal Journey

I was brought up to believe that the idea of performing animals was wrong. It was the skill of human performers and the dangers they risked they drew me to the world of circus, but while all-human shows such as Cirque du Soleil may represent the future of the art form, I quickly realised that I would have to attend a traditional circus with tigers and elephants in order to catch a glimpse of its history, because it was with the horsemanship of Philip Astley nearly 250 years ago that the circus began.

I went with mixed feelings over the animal issue, and so my journey through the backstage world of the circus also became a personal journey through the rights, wrongs, truths and fictions of animals in the sawdust circle.

Share my journey through this complex subject in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus.  Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

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

"The greatest show on Earth... in a book!"
- World's Fair

A circus tiger
- who knows what he's
really thinking?

Oh, and for more information on the ethics of Peta, visit Astley's Legacy, a blog dedicated to countering anti-circus propaganda and presenting the truth about circus animals and animal rights organisations.