Peter Jolly Interview - 50 Years in the Circus

Peter Jolly
50 years under canvas

According to Peter Jolly, "The caption should be, this is what you look like after 50 years in the circus!"

And what a life he's led. At 15-years-old, he ran away with Billy Smarts' circus and within a few years was in charge of 11 polar bears!

"I came from a horsey background, but I branched out and learned whatever I could. I helped out with the elephants. I started clowning."

By the time he married, at the age of 21, he and his wife Carol were doing eleven acts between them, so they started their own circus. When they started, they were the only performers and did the whole show between them.

Circus in the sun
Peter Jolly's Circus opens its doors
in Rushall near Birmingham

Today, Peter Jolly's Circus remains a family affair, with Peter Jolly Jr as the dashing ringmaster and daughters Julie Ann and Sarah Jane performing in the show.

One of only two British circuses licensed to use wild animals, the programme includes's horses, doves, ducks, snakes, camel and zebra.

Peter Jolly Sr presents an 'educated pony' who does sums by counting with his hoof - an act that dates back to Philip Astley's first circus in 1768 and probably before. He also brings on a fox that rides around the ring on a horse's back.

Human acts include tightrope, foot-juggling, a very tall stilt-walker, clowns throwing water over each other and a whip-cracking wild west finale.

The queue that makes Peter jolly.

But it's clearly the animals that are the biggest hit with a big family audience on the night I attend, with queues for interval pony rides, photographs with a snake, and to see the lions fed after the show.

According to Jolly, animal rights protests are nothing new. "At Smart's in the 60s, they'd slash the tyres on the Rolls Royces. These days it's more name-calling on the internet than shouting outside the gates. But the general public don't read animal rights websites. If they want to bring their kids to the circus they do."

As he celebrates his half century under canvas, the queue outside seems to prove the 65-year-old showman right.

Click here for a review of Peter Jolly's Circus.

Updated 2nd Edition
includes my visit to
Peter Jolly's Circus

What's it like to run away with the circus? Read the stories of those who did, and those who were born in the big top; those who train tigers and those who swallow swords or swing on the flying trapeze, in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

Click here to buy from Amazon.

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

Thomas Chipperfield's lions and tigers relax backstage at the circus

Tsavo, named after a place in Kenya where the lions are
said to grow especially big, relaxes before the show

...and born show off that he is, puts on a show with
one eye on the camera

Circus with a bite

Tsavo leaves his living quarters

For more pictures that I took backstage at Peter Jolly's Circus, click here.

To find out how tigers are trained and to read more on the subject of animals in the circus, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus. Click here to buy from Amazon.

"A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." - Mail on Sunday

Thomas Chipperfield's circus lions and tigers

King of the Cage
Thomas Chipperfield brings big cats back to Britain

Just back from Peter Jolly's Circus, where Thomas Chipperfield and his big cats were drawing quite a crowd! A big story on this coming soon, but in the meantime, here are a few more pictures I took when the circus set up at Rushall, near Walsall in the midlands.

Lions and tigers, oh my!

What can a cat man do?
Chipperfield and Tsavo relax before the show

While the queue begins to form outside

What's life like in the cage with six Bengal tigers? Read my interview with Martin Lacey in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus. Click here to read half a dozen customer reviews on Amazon.

A cat's life
Tsavo the lion relaxes backstage

Click here for more pictures of the Chipperfield cats backstage.

And click here for a review of Peter Jolly's Circus.

Circus directory 2014

How many circuses can you see in Britain this year? According to the circus diaries blog, there are more than 50. Clicking through the links, it looks like they're all active, so click here for the full list and find one near you.

When I wrote my book, Circus Mania, the Mail on Sunday called it "A brilliant account of a vanishing art form." But with so many shows on the road this year, I think Dr Haze of the Circus of Horrors better described the circus scene when he said in the book, "Circus is very much alive and juggling."
Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon, then go along and see a circus near you.

Rime circus and theatre show on tour

Square Peg
- putting the circus on stage

Just been sent the above shot from Rime, a mixture of circus, theatre and dance based on Coolridge's epic poem, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, which is appearing at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, May 16 and 17 as part of a national tour that runs until September.

Directed by Tim Lenkiewicz, Rime is the product of the Square Peg Company, which was formed as the Roundhouse Circus Company, a project for under-26-year-olds in 2009.

According to the Wolsey's Jennifer Raw, "I saw a rehearsal in February and it makes you want to run away with the circus!"

Well, that's what a circus is supposed to do...

Criticism as poetry

Katherine Kavanagh
Bard of the Big Top?

What do critics really think about the shows they review? In an ideal world, you'd like to think their review reflected their reactions exactly. But in our less than perfect world a myriad of compromises can take place between watching a show and writing about it.

How many times have you read a review and thought he or she is just saying that because everyone else is saying the same thing because it's fashionable to do so. It happens - sometimes out of insecurity on the critic's part. "If everyone else thinks Cirque du Soleil is brilliant," the insecure hack thinks, "dare I say I hated it? Or could I possibly be wrong? Perhaps I'll look like I don't know what I'm talking about, so I'd better go with the flow."

Then there are the magazines that give good reviews because the show in question is buying an expensive advert in the same mag. Or the mag is running a big feature on the show, so running a bad review in the same issue would look stupid. Especially if the critic is the same person who wrote the feature - so perhaps it would be better to accentuate the positive?

Then there are a writer's internal pressures. Critics should be impartial, but in a small world critics get to know people who appear in productions they review - they may have interviewed them; or just met up over interval drinks at a previous production. It's hard to be harsh with people you know, easier to be 'diplomatic.'

Telling the blunt truth can make you unpopular, and even critics paid to judge other people can find it hard to be judged.

There's also the question of 'balance.' "Okay, I hated it," the writer thinks, "But I can see why some people would like it. Maybe I should point out those aspects."

All of the above means that a review may sometimes be a long way from a writer's reaction on the night.

Circus critic Katherine Kavanagh found herself struggling to be both honest and fair in a review of Puffball she was writing for www.thisiscabaret.com. So on her blog www.thecircusdiaries.com, she's provided a fascinating glimpse into the work of a critic by presenting her review as it appeared, plus the unedited notes she wrote during the show. Which is the most honest or evocative, she asks?

Well, what struck me was that her unedited notes read like free form poetry! Check out these 'stanzas':

Making lipstick and dress from discarded plastic sheet.
Tenderness as Chrysalis wraps Evans and carries off.
Is this a prologue and a beat is going to kick in?

Hard to be damning about such a personal piece of work, whose roots were in issues that I care about and believe in.
It’s also hard to find positives to write about this show!
25 mins to go and I’m checking the time and my neighbours are talking about when they can get out.

Poet as critic!
Check out the whole thing, here. And Katherine, can we have more in that style, please?

Circus Mania author
Douglas McPherson
- his comments have made him
unwelcome in some big tops.

BARRED FROM THE BIG TOP!
Click here to read more on the pressures on critics.

Marilyn Monroe in the circus ring

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Princes Stephanie
Royal patron

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

Circus Ferrel comes to school!

Circus Ferrel at Yaxham Primary School

Following on from my previous post on Circus Starr, which puts on shows for disadvantaged kids (click here to read all about it), I chanced to drive past this afternoon a big top that gives children a chance to star in the spotlit circle, Circus Ferrel.

Circus Ferrel transport

Seen here in the grounds of Yaxham Primary School in Norfolk, Circus Ferrel has a unique business model. Each week it builds up at a school somewhere in East Anglia. During the week they give free circus skills workshops to the children. The keenest kids are then rehearsed for a chance to appear alongside professional performers in the shows that the circus puts on at the weekend.

Circus Ferrel is the brainchild of Martin Taylor, who trained as a teacher and enjoyed a varied career as a TV repairman and steam train driver on a preserved railway before finding his calling as Marty the clown; and his wife Lynette who supervises the show as Grandma the ring-mistress.

The couple became fascinated by the world of the big top after attending a local circus and then getting involved as helpers before deciding to live the dream of setting up their own circus.

If you'd like Circus Ferrel to visit your school, the week-long circus experience includes a circus assembly and ideas for incorporating circus themes into regular classes. It's completely free to the host school and funded by the public shows that the circus puts on at the weekend.

What's in it for the circus? Well, they get a free ground to build up on; the kids promote the circus by putting up posters locally and, best of all, they encourage parents to buy tickets. After all, what mum and dad wouldn't want to attend a show their own children are appearing in?

Sounds like a win-win idea to me. Oh, and if the big top in these pictures looks quiet and deserted beneath that moody sky, don't be fooled. The music coming through the canvas told me there was a performance in full swing, and from the frequent bursts of applause and cheers a full house was lapping it up.

Circus Ferrel's Grandma and Marty
...coming to a school near you

For details, go to www.circusferrel.com and click here to read my review in The Stage of a Circus Ferrel show I attended in Suffolk a couple of years ago.

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

Circus Mondao in the Weekly News

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

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

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

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

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

From circus ring to wedding ring
Bippo pops the question

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

Click here to buy Circus Mania from Amazon.

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

Rod Stewart and Elton John visit the circus!

Recalling the days when big stars and big tops rubbed shoulders much more frequently, here's Rod Stewart and Elton John dropping in on son of the circus Billy Smart Jr and his wife Hannalore. (Not sure what they've got in those tins, but they look suspiciously like they're raising funds for an animal charity to me!)

If those groovy clothes float your boat, get along to Westfield Stratford today, Fashion Revolution Day, where Hannalore will be selling off her 1500-piece wardrobe from the 60s, 70s and 80s, with some of the money going to charity. Don't expect clown shoes and sparkly leotards, though. We're talking the sort of vintage designer gear by Vivienne Westword, Chanel and Versace that a socialite circus wife wore in those days.

Who knows, maybe even Rod and Elton will be there...