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11 Things You Should Know About British Circus History

The greatest show on earth has been entertaining people around the world for 250 years with its performers demonstrating amazing feats of skill and daring to entertain the public. However, the circus we know and love—with its variety of circus ring acts—is a mere quarter of a millennium old. Read on to discover how Britain became the birthplace of the modern circus.

The modern circus’s founder never used the word circus.

In 1768, after leaving the army, cavalry officer Philip Astley opened a riding school in London. He began putting on displays to demonstrate his equestrian skills, performing his trick riding in a circular arena that measured 13 metres (42 feet), which remains the standard size of circus rings used around the world today. Astley expanded his repertoire, bringing in other skilled entertainers such as acrobats, jugglers and clowns to create crowd-pleasing variety shows. He toured widely and also built wooden amphitheatres with seating around the circus ring, later adding a roof. When he could no longer perform his trick riding, he created the role of Ringmaster for himself and though he’s internationally credited as the circus’s founding father, he didn’t like the word ‘circus’ and never used it himself.

The oldest working circus dates from the early 1900s

The first black British circus owner came from Norwich

Norwich-born Pablo Fanque is renowned as Britain’s first black circus owner and one of the most successful circus performers and proprietors ever. He is probably best known as the inspiration for the Beatles song, ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ on the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

Born William Darby in 1796, Fanque was orphaned at an early age and excelled at acrobatics, tightrope walking and especially horse training. In 1841 Fanque started his own circus and toured widely, especially in the north of England. Though he died penniless at the age of 76 in Stockport, he is well remembered and large crowds of onlookers lined the streets of Leeds for his funeral procession. Today, he is commemorated on a blue plaque on the John Lewis store in Norwich.

Elephants bathed in the river in Leamington Spa

The genteel English town of Leamington Spa has a place in British circus history thanks to the famous Victorian elephant trainer Samuel Lockhart (1851-1933). Lockhart was an incredibly successful showman who toured the UK, Europe and the USA with his troupes of elephants. His most famous elephants were Wilhelmina, Trilby and Haddie, known as the Three Graces. It’s said that Lockhart would take his elephants to bathe in the River Leam in Leamington. A 19th-century slipway down to the river near the suspension bridge in Jephson Gardens is known as ‘Elephant Walk’.

The first human cannonball was a teenage girl

On 2 April 1877, acrobat and tightrope walker Rossa Richter, whose stage-name was Zazel, became the first person to be blasted out of a cannonball. The spectacular finale to her aerial act saw the 16-year-old lowering herself into the cannon to be propelled 21 metres (70 feet) into the air over the heads of an astounded audience. Explosions and smoke gave the illusion that she was being fired from the cannon, when it was actually a mechanism of springs and tension that launched her into the air. However, the cannonball act was one of the most dangerous because of the lack of control the performer had over her trajectory and movement. After undertaking the stunt successfully many times, Zazel one day flew over the safety net and broke her back, which forced her into retirement.

The exotic female mystic who earned more than the Prime Minister

Walking on broken glass, or over the heads of hypnotised crocodiles with live serpents around her neck, was a specialty of Koringa (1913-1976), the most notorious female magician of the 1940s. Koringa’s was an orphaned Indian native who learned magic from the fakirs that raised her. She was born Renée Bernard in Bordeaux, France, and was discovered by the Mills Brothers in 1937. A year later, she was one of the circus’s headline acts, performing at top venues like Blackpool Tower and, at one time, she (allegedly) was even being paid more than the Prime Minister. With her green tinted face make-up, afro-style hair and flamboyant stage presence, ‘the only female fakir in the world’ conjured up visions of the exotic and the unknown.

There’s a clown church service held in London every year

Every year on the first Sunday in February, hundreds of clowns from all over the world gather for a church service to remember Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), the father of modern clowning though he always worked in the theatre and never in the circus. Dating back to 1946, the service was held for many years at Holy Trinity Church in Dalston , but in recent years, the event has moved to All Saints Church in Haggerston. Grimaldi, an English actor, comedian and dancer created the image that we still associate with clowns today and was the first to apply white face paint and use make-up to emphasise his facial expressions.

You can see thousands of pieces of British circus history in Sheffield

Based at the University of Sheffield, the National Fairground and Circus Archive has over 150,000 photographs, 4,000 books and journals and over 20,000 items of ephemera to do with popular culture from the 17th century onwards. Inaugurated in 1994, the archive was born out of the PhD research and lifelong passion of Professor Vanessa Toulmin, who comes from a long-established fairground dynasty. It’s a fantastic resource and repository for all things circus and a living archive that actively works to preserve the circus’s cultural history.

The use of animals in circuses is dying out

Traditional circuses with troupes of elephants, big cats and dancing horses are, thankfully, becoming a thing of the past. Because society is more aware of animal rights today and believes it is cruel to force wild animals to perform for entertainment, most modern circuses no longer use animals and instead focus on human performers demonstrating feats of skill, strength and daring. More than 40 countries around the world have already outlawed the use of animals. Scotland passed legislation to ban wild animals in 2017, and English parliament is expected to do the same this year.

Some people actually have run away with the circus

Though many people dream of escaping their humdrum lives to run away with the circus , not many actually do it. Three notable people who did were Bertram Mills, who formed a circus company after making a wager with a friend; Gerry Cottle, a stockbroker’s son who joined a circus at the age of 16 and ended up with his own famous company; and Billy Smart who came from a fairground family and surprised everyone by buying a circus. More recently, Nell and Toti Gifford realised their dreams and in 2000 started Gifford’s Circus, which tours village greens in England every summer.

Six Cities of Circus host events to commemorate the anniversary

2018 is the 250th anniversary of the circus, which is being celebrated throughout the year in theatres, museums, archives and circuses across the country. Six Cities of Circus—a group that includes Belfast, Bristol, Norwich & Great Yarmouth, Blackpool, Newcastle-under-Lyme and London—is playing a key role in the celebrations by showcasing the circus heritage with present-day activities. Dea Birkett, the Ringmaster coordinating the event, ran away to join the circus at the age of 36, igniting a lifelong passion that has never left her.

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The story of circus

Circuses have been a popular form of entertainment for centuries, but their acts have changed greatly over time. The V&A holds in its collection a large number of objects that reveal the fascinating history of the circus.

Philip Astley (1742 – 1814), a six-foot tall, ex-cavalry man, is often credited as the 'father of the modern circus'. In 1768, he and his wife Patty established Astley's Riding School in London, where Philip would teach in the morning and perform equestrian tricks in the afternoon. Both Philip and Patty were expert riders. Philip's most famous act and widely considered to be the first circus clown act, was ‘The Tailor of Brentford or ‘Tailor's Ride to Brentford’, in which he acted out a comic journey on horseback. One of Patty's popular tricks involved her circling the ring on horseback at speed, with swarms of bees covering her hands and arms as if she was wearing a muff.

Astley is also credited with discovering that the ideal size for a circus ring is 42 feet in diameter. This was the optimum size that enabled him to use centrifugal force to help balance on a horse's back. As he rode at speed around the ring, he used gravity to push himself into the horse's back and so prevent a fall onto the sawdust floor.

Astley quickly began to incorporate other acts from the fairs and pleasure gardens of London and Paris into the performance. These were acrobats, jugglers, rope dancers, clowns and strongmen. By 1780 he had built a roof over the entire arena so that his audiences could enjoy performances throughout the whole year.

Astley may have been credited as the 'father of modern circus' but it was his rival Mr Charles Dibdin (1745 – 1814), British composer, musician, dramatist, novelist and actor, who first coined the word 'circus'. Dibdin copied Astley's formula of dramatic equestrian entertainment by opening The Royal Circus a short distance from Astley's Riding School.

In 1795, Astley opened the Royal Amphitheatre after his previous building had burnt down. The Royal Amphitheatre had a stage in addition to the circus ring and the two were interlinked by ramps. This was an ingenious design, which heightened the possibilities for tricks and dramatic effect. The audience could sit close to the ring with horses swishing past their faces as they cantered up a ramp just a few inches away. But in 1803, disaster struck again as the wooden building, lit by candles, burnt down.

In 1804 Astley's was rebuilt for a third time. Each time the theatre was rebuilt the interior became more ornate. Astley also ensured that the stages were strengthened to take the weight of more horses and increase the dramatic potential of his acts. He continued to collect new acts from home and abroad with clowns, ropewalkers and tumblers complementing the equestrian entertainment.

In 1824 the management of Philip Astley's Amphitheatre was taken over by the circus performer and 'father of British circus equestrianism', Andrew Ducrow (1793 – 1842). Ducrow staged popular equestrian dramas such as Mazeppa; The Courier of St Petersburg and Ivanhoe . These were huge spectacles involving scenery changes, beautiful costumes and dramatic theatrical effects such as the imitation of thunder. Ducrow was an excellent trick-rider but also proficient as a tumbler, ropedancer and theatre actor. Born into a circus family in Southwark, London in 1793, Ducrow was trained in circus skills from a very young age. His father was an acrobat and strongman who could reputedly carry five children on a table using no more than his teeth. At the age of 19, Ducrow had appeared at Astley's with an act called 'The Flying Wardrobe', in which he would speed around the ring on horseback dressed as a drunkard in rags. After many false falls and the removal of several waistcoats he would reveal himself as the star rider of the show. This act is still performed in many circuses today as a comic 'entrée' or opening.

In addition to equestrian dramas, the audiences at Astley's were also kept up to date with topical events. News from the Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 15) were presented in dramatic form using exciting horse displays. In 1853, Astley's also presented The Battle of Waterloo and The Battle of the Alma . The following year William Cooke produced The Crimean War . This show suffered an unfortunate first night when many of the actors were injured from the gun fire despite the use of fake ammunition. Cooke had to pay out almost as much in compensation as he could hope to take in profits.

Victorian circus

In the mid-19th century there were hundreds of circuses operating in Britain. Trick-riding continued to be the main attraction, but a variety of other acts developed, including an aquatic circus where the circus ring was flooded with water. Such was the popularity of circuses that many 19th-century theatres also presented circus acts and you were as likely to see jugglers and aerial acts on a trip to the music hall as at a circus. Circus was a hard business, and whilst some circus owners such as George Sanger made their fortune, many died penniless.

One of the factors that made circus so popular was that fairground entertainers travelled to their audiences. From the late 18th century, circuses toured to even the smallest towns and in the 19th century the development of the railways enabled circuses to travel further. By the 1870s huge circuses were touring across Europe and America with two or three trainloads of equipment. Astley's Circus toured regularly throughout Britain as well as visiting Paris and other European cities, despite the often difficult travelling conditions.

Richard Sands was an American circus owner as well as an acrobat, equestrian and 'ceiling walker'. His Sand's American Circus first visited England in 1842 with a stud of 35 horses and 25 equestrians. Sands presented his 'air walking' act, using rubber suction pads attached to his feet, at the Surrey Theatre and later at Drury Lane in 1853. In 1861 however, the stunt ended in disaster. He was challenged to walk across the ceiling of a civic building in Melrose, Massachusetts in the United States but when a section of plaster he was attached to gave way, he was killed by the fall.

Richard Sands is credited with introducing the type of tent we associate with circus today to England. Sand's American Circus was advertised as having a "splendid and novel Pavilion, made after an entirely new style". Sands' Circus toured England for three or four years, and his tent was enthusiastically imitated.

Early touring circuses were often small operations, manned entirely by a single family. The company might include a couple of acrobats, a clown who performed a comic equestrian act, a tightrope walker, and as many horses as could be afforded – perhaps two trained to perform and two used to pull the cart from town to town. A short show would be repeated several times a day from noon until night, with an audience stood watching from behind a wooden barrier. All the performers had to play several parts, and in the days before the enclosed circus, the company would pass around a hat to collect money from the audience.

In 1892, Charlie Keith (1836 – 95), famous clown and circus owner, constructed and patented the first portable circus building. Keith had made his name touring in circuses around the UK and Europe. He was frustrated with performing in leaky tents with slippery and muddy floors and wanted to construct a touring circus that was sturdier than canvas.

Keith's portable circus was made of planks of wood nailed together and a canvas roof that could be flat packed onto transportation. The building even had its own box office. It was illuminated with gas lights and advertised as having a 'grand promenade with a fashionable lounge'. Keith claimed that his 'circus building on wheels' or 'Keith's Carriage Circus' was an innovation, but he was not the first to have the idea, with similar arrangements having been advertised for sale as early as 1854.

Temporary circus buildings, which many companies used in the early 19th century, were often hastily built and unsafe. The gallery of a Bristol circus fell down in 1799, and in 1848 the wife of the circus proprietor Pablo Fanque was killed in Leeds when the pit and gallery of a temporary wooden circus collapsed.

Circus parades

Larger circuses would often announce their arrival in town with a circus parade. The parade was a natural advertisement for the circus and would attract huge crowds. Barnum and Bailey's Circus parade along the Prince of Wales Road in Norwich in 1899 included a menagerie, a military band, 70 horses and collection of 'living human curiosities'. During the parade a '40-horse hitch' (a wagon pulled by 40 horses) damaged the front of a pub called The Mayflower. The resulting publicity more than made up for the expenses incurred by the owner, and he renamed the pub the Forty Horse Inn.

When Sanger's Circus arrived in town in the late 19th century, it did so in style. A typical carriage weighed ten tons and was drawn by four horses in 'royal state harness' as part of a grand procession. All the carved woodwork on the carriage was gilded. Sanger's wife, Mlle Pauline de Vere, sometimes dressed as Britannia and rode on top of a carriage holding a Union Jack shield, a gold trident, and wearing a Greek helmet. The circus lion, Nero, and a lamb sat together at her feet. After this came a string of camels, a herd of elephants, numerous other costumed characters, exotic animals either in cages, or led by their trainers, and of course, the band. During the Second World War, the gilt on the carriage was scraped off and sold, and Sanger was forbidden by the authorities to clog up the roads with his spectacular, but slow moving processions.

'Lord' George Sanger (1825 – 1911) was the most successful circus entrepreneur of the 19th century. An eccentric millionaire, notorious for being a smart dresser, Sanger was instantly recognisable by his shiny top hat and diamond tie pin. Sanger had started in business at the age of 15 selling sticky rock confectionery. In 1853, he opened a circus with his brother, which toured the country. By its 1855 tour to Liverpool, Sanger's Circus was playing in front of large audiences. Soon after this, Sanger introduced lions and other wild animals into the touring circus, which boosted its popularity further. By 1871 Sanger was so successful he was able to buy Astley's Amphitheatre. His circuses continued to tour the country and he boasted that there was not a town in England with a population above 100 people that had not been visited by a Sanger's circus.

20th-century circus

One of the biggest names in circus history was Bertram Mills International Circus. Bertram Mills (1873 – 1938) formed his circus having made a bet with a friend that he could set up a successful circus company within 12 months. On 17 December 1920, Mills opened a 16-act show at Olympia in West London for the Christmas season. Although Mills had no direct experience of working in circus, like Astley before him he was a keen horseman and had travelled to horse shows in Europe and America and realised the potential to reinvigorate circus in Britain. Mills had the foresight and vision to create an international circus, bringing the most exciting acts from all over Europe to Olympia, including Japanese gymnasts and trick-cyclists from the Swedish circus owner Henning Orlando. The circus was a huge success and Bertram Mills International Circus became a household name in the UK for its annual Christmas shows that ran until the 1966 season.

Mills was an astute businessman and realised that in order to profit from the circus he would have to sell seats at a higher price than was customary. To try to attract a richer audience he instigated 'opening lunches', inviting as many influential people as he could muster, including members of high society and key members of the press. By 1927 the prestigious guest list included Sir Winston Churchill and his wife, politician Ramsay McDonald and the Earl and Countess of Orkney. His innovative and high profile advertising campaign paid off. The press billed the Olympia performance as "The Great Circus Revival".

Every season at Olympia the Bertram Mills' Circus had two dress rehearsals on the day before opening. Each rehearsal was attended by children from poor families, who were chosen by the Mayors of the London Boroughs. They not only saw the show, but were treated to refreshments during and after the performance. Between seven and ten thousand children were invited to a pre-Christmas rehearsal every year.

When Mills retired, his sons continued to develop his circus, bringing new acts from across Europe and America. They also continued to tour Bertram Mills' Circus across the UK and soon other travelling circuses followed: Chipperfields, Billy Smart's, the Robert Brothers', Bobby Robert's Circus, Cottle and Austen's, Gerry Cottle's, and Zippo's. In the 1950s and 1960s a trip to the circus was still an eagerly anticipated treat for millions of British schoolchildren.

Circus acts

From clowning and ballooning, to menageries and trick-riding, explore some of the circus acts that have entertained audiences over the last 250 years.

The decline of traditional circus

The popularity of traditional circus in the UK has waned in the last 50 years. Gone are the magnificent circus parades to announce the arrival of a circus in town. No longer do great trains carry circuses across the country by night. Gone too are the wild animal acts, sideshows and menageries.

In the 1960s and 70s television began to show natural history programmes and people began to question the use of animals in the circus. Safari parks, a phenomenon of the same time period, also enabled people to see wild animals in more natural surroundings. People were no longer as thrilled and amazed to see lions and tigers in the circus ring as their 19th century ancestors.

Many circuses today however, still feature equestrian acts – the skill that encouraged Philip Astley to start the first circus in London over two hundred years ago. There are now fewer than 20 circuses in Britain today. The circus owners who continue the tradition are constantly aiming to find new ways of attracting the public with increasingly ambitious staging of their shows.

Circus reinvented

Whilst traditional circus may be in decline, alternative circuses, such as Circus Oz , Cirque du Soleil , Ra Ra Zoo and Archaos have drawn on traditional skills and presented them in a more contemporary style. Gerry Cottle's 'Circus of Horrors' , is billed as a 'darkly comical show', and presents circus skills in a more theatrical framework.

Despite the decline of traditional circus, new circus schools have opened in the UK to train performers in a variety of tricks, from aerial acts to juggling. In 1983 Gerry Cottle set up Britain's first circus school, which offered students the opportunity to tour with professional companies as part of their training. In 1989, The National Centre for Circus Arts opened in London as a centre for training in contemporary circus skills, teaching tumbling, trapeze, acrobatics, and juggling.

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(Detail) Poster advertising Billy Smart's New World Circus, Clapham Common, 1971. Museum no. S.225-1994. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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Pinders Circus

Erika Pinder From Hungary trained and graduated from the Hungarian State circus School. She can perform many circus acts in fact she was presented with an award by the Circus Friends Association for the best aeriel act in the UK. Erika also deals with the many tasks behind the scenes, you may see her in the box office, serving refreshments and performing in the ring as well as being full-time mother to three children.

Eddy Pinder Is from the oldest circus family in the UK. The first Pinder’s circus started in 1850 although a Pinder's member married Thomas Ord in 1812 who already had a circus. Pinder's circus was asked on many occasions to present the show at the royal household at Balmoral Castle and still have the letters of appreciation from the Queen in their archives.

Eddy, an all rounder, performs as a clown with his wife Erika with their comedy car, plenty of bangs and noise in that routine, and their noted and original decoration routine slapstick soap, water and fun all the way. Eddy is also tent master, chief mechanic, electrician in fact anything that needs fixing he is called upon.

Mike Lea Acts as your ringmaster and host at the performance, introducing each act and creating a unique atmosphere for you to enjoy. Mr Mike is a member of the Friend of the Grand Order of Water Rats an organisation full of celebrities and stars who raise huge amounts for charity. He is also an accomplished master magician who has appeared on television many times, toured with numerous shows and spent many years with Billy Smart's Circus. As well as announcing the performers he has to keep the show running smoothly and interact with the audience and keep a watchful eye on proceedings. The show is the easy part, publicity and administration has to be managed on a daily basis.

MIKE LEA PRESENTS

Pinders circus - on tour from april 2024..

Hello everyone welcome to the wonderful world of entertainment Pinders Circus are pleased to present an all action packed show for 2024.

Edward Pinder on

Bgt, simon cowell got lucky...this time..

When 11-year-old Edward Pinder narrowly avoided putting a knife into Simon Cowell’s shoulder, the audience gasped but the talented performer remained cool as a cucumber.

We caught up with Edward to find out more about that nail-biting moment.

“I was a bit nervous about throwing knives at Simon but I got over it,” he said. “I wanted to impress David and Simon.

“I’ve been doing it for about a year and I never miss. Sometimes the knives bounce out. I practice every day. I'm 11th generation circus performer and this is what I want to do when I am older too.”

Edward admitted he’d like to have had a go at throwing knives at Ant and Dec next but that there are more tricky elements to his act.

“The knives takes a lot of practice but other parts of my act are even harder like the whips and lasso.

“The ropes are really difficult. You’ll have to wait and see what I do next.

“I wanted to go on Britain’s Got Talent to show people what I can do. You don’t see an act like mine every day. I thought I’d give it a try and it worked.”

When he is on tour with the family circus, Edward attends 50 different schools in a year.

“I enjoy going to lots of different schools. My friends always say can ‘can I Have a go’ and I say no because they’re not trained.”

Edward’s Dad Eddy told us he is very proud of his son who has been part of the circus since the age of seven and has already ticked of a Diablo act and the role of ringmaster on his list of achievements. He explained Edwards was a competent and confident child but even he was worried when Simon put himself into the act.

“When he had Simon on stage I was in the audience and was quite worried,” he said. “He had multi-million pound Simon Cowell in front of him and with live entertainment there is always that one per cent chance something could go wrong.

“He’s the only person in the world who has thrown knives at Simon Cowell!”

The History of Pinder's Circus

The roots of Pinders circus go back to 1784 with the birth of Thomas Ord the son of the reverend Selby Ord. Young Thomas ran away from home aged around 14 and joined the circus. 200 years ago by 1812 he had started his own circus he soon became a house hold name all over Scotland and the north of England. Ords equestrian arena became the most famous circus of the early part of the 19th century.

After Thomas Ord died in 1859 his daughter Selina Ord carried on with the circus, in 1861 Selina married Edwin Pinder whose uncles, George and William Pinder had founded Pinders circus in 1854. Edwin left his uncles and he and Selina continued with Ord Pinders circus in Scotland.

Edwins uncles went to Europe with Pinders circus and became Frances most famous circus where it remains to this day in name only as no members of the Pinder family are involved. Pinders circus in Scotland also became famous including 3 command performances for Queen Victoria at Balmoral castle in 1877-1892-and 1898.

Edwin and Selina had 1 daughter and 4 sons to carry on the circus the eldest son William also had 4 sons one of whom was George who married Eileen Connor daughter of F.J Connor owner of Connors grand circus on the Isle of Man.

In 1967 there son George Pinder married Christine Fossett of the world famous Fossett circus and it is there son Eddy along with his wife and there son Edward who is 11 and there business partner Mike Lea who run this present day Pinders circus 200 years after it all started with a young boy running off to join the circus.

Pinders Circus tel 07578 083755  email [email protected]

Website design by www.smebusinessdevelopment.co.uk

The history of UK circus

Are you interested in the history of circus in the UK? Then take a look at our   Circus Timeline .

Inspired to find out more?  For an entertaining and quick read see  The Guardian ‘s Chainsaw Juggling, human cannonballs and Coco the Clown! The astounding 250 year story of circus , written by Lyn Gardner in January 2018 at the beginning of the anniversary year of the founding of the first ‘modern’ circus.

You couldn’t have a history of contemporary circus without mentioning James Thierée and Crying Out Loud has a long association with this extraordinary artist, having produced all his UK tours since 1998 when his Compagnie du Hanneton, staged its first production,  The Junebug Symphony .  Chris Wiegand has written some memorable pieces about him. Here’s one from 2016, the year James staged his last large-scale piece The Toad Knew  at Edinburgh International Festival.

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50 years of circus photography – in pictures

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The year 2018 is the 25oth anniversary of the creation of the circus, and Peter Lavery has been photographing behind the scenes across the UK for 50 years. His fascination is with the disparity between the glitz of the shows and the ordinariness backstage. His pictures are the subject of a new exhibition at the Harley Gallery in Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, which is the first to document his decades-long project. It opens on 3 February and runs until 15 April

Sarah Gilbert

Sat 27 Jan 2018 09.00 GMT Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 14.33 GMT

Photograph: Peter Lavery

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The Historic England Blog

250 years of circus

It’s London, Easter Monday, 1768. Showman Philip Astley and his wife Patty, a trick rider, draw out a ring and fill it with astonishing acts.

It’s London, Easter Monday, 1768. Retired cavalryman, entrepreneur and incredible showman Philip Astley and his wife Patty, a trick rider, draw out a ring and fill it with astonishing acts – tumblers, horses, acrobats, jugglers, clowns.

They created the first circus in the world. 250 years later, Circus250 is celebrating the birth of this remarkable art form in a year-long programme of astounding events in circuses (new and old), museums, archives, film festivals, libraries, literary festivals and schools throughout England.

Ringmaster Dea Birkett tells us about the places that made circus history:

Capturing the built history of circus is difficult. Unlike opera or theatre, there are few grand buildings. We don’t know what defined the ring in which Philip and Patty Astley put on their very first show, premiering Patty’s astonishing act of riding around smothered in a swarm of bees.

Perhaps it was nothing more than a rope laid out in a circle on the marshland by Waterloo, surrounded by a ring of sacks to sit on, with benches behind them as premium seats.

Perhaps the circumference was drawn by a ring of sandbags, echoing the painted wooden barrier around circus rings today. But we do know that its size was soon established.

The Astleys experimented with different sized rings to find the best which would enable them to stand easily on a horse’s back as it cantered around. They decided on 42ft diameter, due to the centrifugal forces. Any ring, anywhere in the world, has been 42ft in diameter ever since.

The Astleys’ new show was a huge success. Within a couple of years, they were building open wooden structures to house it. Within a decade, they added a roof. Others copied their popular format, and circus amphitheatres became popular places of art and entertainment in London, soon spreading across the country and abroad. Astley was building so many he was nicknamed ‘Amphi-Astley’.

But these structures were temporary and, being wooden, vulnerable to fire. They were replaced by more circus pop ups – a giant canvas tent known as the Big Top, brought from American in the 1820s and still used by circuses, both traditional and contemporary, today. Over 40 are currently touring Britain for the 250 th anniversary year.

Blackpool Tower Circus is the only surviving Victorian arena still in use today, and one of only four original water circuses across Europe. The Grade I listed circus was not a stand-alone building, but is positioned at the base of the Blackpool Tower, between the four legs. Designed by Maxwell and Tuke, it opened to the public 14 May 1894.

Only a few years later, in 1900, the interiors were redesigned by Frank Matcham. Following his  visit to the Alhambra in Spain, he created an illusion of travel and fantasy, complete with a harem area. The Blackpool Gazette dubbed it a dream of ‘Moorish magnificence’. You can still visit this magnificence today.

The Hippodrome in Great Yarmouth, built in 1903 by legendary showman George Gilbert, is Britain’s last remaining building constructed entirely for circus. The mechanical water ring transforms into a gigantic pool, an original feature restored in 1979 by current owner Peter Jay. Like the Tower, it’s been in used for performances every season since.

Great Yarmouth and Blackpool are both defined by their proud built circus heritage. They are two of six Cities of Circus celebrating Circus250, alongside London (where circus was born), Bristol (which has more circus companies than any other city in Britain), Belfast and Newcastle-under-Lyme (where Astley was born).

With only a few buildings, we have to find other ways to reveal circus history. The echoes of the circus linger long after the smell of the sawdust has disappeared. Because circus was the original pop up, it will have come to your town and, if you look hard enough, you’ll find signs of it – maybe nothing more than a street name. Hercules Road in Lambeth, London, was named after Astley’s strongman. But it took 250 years to officially honour the couple who founded such a fabulous British artform. Only this Easter Sunday was the original spot of the first circus finally recognised with a plaque to the Astleys.

Philip Astley, a travelling performer, died in Paris in 1814 and is buried somewhere in Père Lachaise Cemetery. His unmarked grave has been lost. We do not know what happened to Patty.

Today’s circuses often inhabit a new kind of historic building – churches. Many circus schools take place in churches no longer used for worship, due to their incredible height, including the biggest circus school in Britain, Circomedia in Bristol. They, too, are part of circus heritage and its homes. They continue in the radical spirit of Astley.

Dea Birkett is ringmaster at Circus250. Find out more about Circus250  here

Thanks to Professor Vanessa Toulmin and Chris Barltop for their expert input.

London Historiy Day is back and it’s bigger and better than ever. 

On Thursday 31 May 2018, more than 70 of London’s museums, galleries and cultural spaces will open their doors to reveal special behind the scenes tours, rarely seen exhibits and one off events, celebrating the capital’s unique identity.

Plan your London History Day.

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The Two-Way

'a kingdom on wheels': the hidden world that made the circus happen.

Camila Domonoske

A Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's circus truck is unloaded as the "Out of this World" show is set up at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore. This was one of the last few stops on the circus's final tour. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's circus truck is unloaded as the "Out of this World" show is set up at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore. This was one of the last few stops on the circus's final tour.

On the steps above the makeshift stables, the circus priest is getting nostalgic.

"I did a baptism once in Fort Worth, Texas. ... I came in on an elephant carrying the baby, which was four weeks old," the Rev. Jerry Hogan says. "Now that baby is 15. I've married a lot of these kids and I've baptized their kids, and watched them grow."

It's late April at Baltimore's Royal Farms Arena, in the closing weeks of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's "Out of This World" tour.

Around the Nation

From the big top into the big world: a ringling ringmaster's final bow.

The last-ever show is Sunday night in Uniondale, N.Y. The circus isn't profitable any more, according to the company that runs it. And especially once the elephants were gone — after public battles with animal rights activists — ticket sales just couldn't keep it afloat.

That means the end of the famous traveling circus show, with a ringmaster and big cats and clowns and trapeze acts ... the stuff of nostalgia for generations.

But it's the end of much more than just a show, Hogan says.

Clowns and trapeze artists loosen up backstage before the show. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Clowns and trapeze artists loosen up backstage before the show.

"The performance is 2 1/2 hours," he says, as horses are saddled and kids carried past us to the nursery. "The circus is the whole experience."

It's baptisms on elephants, pies in the face on birthdays, raising a family on the circus train as the American landscape rolls by. And it's spectacular acts of skill in the rings and outside them — a logistical feat polished over 146 years and preparing for the final curtain call.

'A city that folds itself up like an umbrella'

"The Greatest Show on Earth" started in 1871 as a traveling museum and menagerie under the imprimatur of P.T. Barnum.

In 1895, the magazine McClure's wrote that "man's intelligence has devised nothing more compact, more orderly, more admirably adapted to its purpose, than the train of a great modern circus":

"It is a kingdom on wheels, a city that folds itself up like an umbrella. Quickly and swiftly every night it does the work of Aladdin's lamp, picking up in its magician's arms theatre, hotel, schoolroom, barracks, home, whisking them all miles away and setting them down before sunrise in a new place."

More than a century later, little has changed. The circus still rolls across the country carrying hundreds of performers, stagehands and children in a mile-long train. These days, they call it a "town without a ZIP code."

"It's the largest theater performance in human history on the longest passenger train in human history," says Rhett Coates, a backstage crew member, as he stands in a vestibule of the train. He's worked off and on for Ringling Brothers since the 1980s and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the circus trains.

Audio engineer Jeff Bell, 33, hangs out on the train the day of a performance. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Coates says his mother was a singer and his stepfather worked on the Atlantic Coastline railway. He thought he'd have to choose between trains and the performing arts.

"But God had another way," he says. He points toward his window — on car 72. The quarters aren't roomy, but "it's comfortable," he says. "It's quiet. It's astonishing."

The train includes the "pie car," the restaurant to feed the crew and performers. There's a mobile repair shop and scores of huge wagons full of supplies, props and gear. There's a nursery and a school.

There's nothing quite like living on a train, says sound technician Greg Hartfield. "You open up the blinds, drinking your coffee, and you're just seeing cities go by you. You're seeing lakes, you're seeing ponds, you're seeing mountains ... from your bedroom window, as you drink your coffee," he says.

And America watches back. When the train crossed roads, Coates says, you could see frustration melt into awe as stopped motorists recognized the logo on the side of the train.

"Their faces light up," he says. "It's a total change in attitude."

A large pig walks backstage as performers on stilts prepare to enter the arena. The circus features two 700-pound pigs, who perform with the dogs. They're smart enough to learn almost any trick, says trainer Hans Klose — but they're rather limited in the agility department. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

The modern menagerie

The back hallways and loading docks of the arena in Baltimore are packed with piles of carrots, mounds of hay and rows of holding pens.

Kanat Tchalabaev and Tatiana Tchalabaeva, who lead the Cossack Riders, have squeezed their 21 horses into one of those hallways, across from offices and meeting rooms. They've been performing with Ringling for years.

Tchalabaeva was a gymnast, and then an acrobat with the Moscow State circus, before she met Kanat, a horse trainer.

Tatiana Tchalabaeva was a professional rhythmic gymnast and an acrobat in the Moscow State Circus. Now she and her husband, a horse trainer, travel and perform with 21 horses. They own even more on their farm in Florida. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Tatiana Tchalabaeva was a professional rhythmic gymnast and an acrobat in the Moscow State Circus. Now she and her husband, a horse trainer, travel and perform with 21 horses. They own even more on their farm in Florida.

"I was so scared of horses," she said. She never dreamed she'd perform with them. But then her mother-in-law retired. "My husband just said, 'OK, let's go, time to learn!' " she says with a laugh.

Now there's no fear. She pats one of her stallions on the neck and explains that they, too, are fearless — trained over many years, until they're totally comfortable with a rider dropping between their legs or flipping on their backs.

In corners and spare spaces, the crew also have to find room for four goats, three llamas, four alpacas, two donkeys, two kangaroos, a dozen lions and tigers, more than two dozen dogs ... and two 700-pound pigs.

A tiger stands in a cage backstage. Elephants were retired from the circus in 2016 but the show features several lions and tigers. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A tiger stands in a cage backstage. Elephants were retired from the circus in 2016 but the show features several lions and tigers.

Trainer Hans Klose coaxes one out into the open with some help from an apple, and explains that with a pig that big, it's a question of persuasion. There's no chance of a leash.

"Roscoe was 30 pounds when I went to the farm and discovered his talent," Klose says. "He was destined for bacon, and we saved him."

Klose, who only recently added pigs to his dog show, is a second-generation circus performer. "My dad always told me once you learn the skills of the circus, no one can ever take it away from you," he says. "You can always make a living and you'll have it your whole life."

Hans Klose trains poodles, terriers and a 700-pound pig named Roscoe to perform in the circus. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Hans Klose trains poodles, terriers and a 700-pound pig named Roscoe to perform in the circus.

Countdown to opening night

Meanwhile, crew members are racing against the clock to transform the arena floor into a circus stage. The days of the big top are long gone, but the fast-paced choreography remains.

"I'd say 60 percent of what we do is moving the show, setting it up and tearing it down," says Assistant General Manager Peter Gold.

He points out the masses of black trusses on rubber mats over the arena's ice floor. Over the course of the next 10 hours, the trusses will be bolted together into a massive structure that holds all of the lights, trapezes, projectors and props — not to mention the tiger cage.

It will be all but invisible when the show is happening, but Gold says it's the heart of the performance.

The grid, as it's known, takes some 30 hours to fully set up and weighs 59,000 pounds. The finer points of its assembly are, literally, a matter of life and death. And getting it right the first time is essential: If anything goes wrong once it's lifted, someone has to climb 40 feet into the air to fix it.

Unicyclists hug backstage before a performance in Baltimore. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Unicyclists hug backstage before a performance in Baltimore.

There are other big circuses out there, but Gold says they don't travel as often or as intensely. And there are other traveling spectacles, but they don't face all the technical challenges of a circus. One crew member compares his job to the grueling seafaring work on The Deadliest Catch, with better weather.

"That's what defines the circus, if you think about it," says Roman Garcia, the general manager of the show. "People come to see the circus because they know they're going to see something like, 'Oh my god, how did they do that? That's an impossible feat!'

"Not only in performance, but behind the scenes," he says, "we do things that are like — 'Oh my god, how did we do this?' "

Peter Gold holds his son while sitting on his desk in the mobile administration offices. Gold used to be a trapeze performer in the circus and is now the assistant general manager. His son, Jerry, is an understudy for a young clown. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

'This is my family'

Walking through the center of the arena, Gold points out the trapeze artist doing safety checks on his equipment. Gold used to swing on the trapeze himself, as a performer. He got hooked on trapeze on vacation in Club Med while he was in college. "One thing led to another," he says.

His wife, Undarmaa Gold, is a Mongolian contortionist. She choreographed a routine in this show — "giving the golden stage to the next generation," as she says with a laugh. She's also teaching their young son and the other circus kids some of her tricks.

Lots of the crew used to perform, and stayed with the circus long after they left the spotlight. Gerardo Medina is beneath the grid assembling the swaypole, a bendy vertical bar that holds a performer dangling in the sky. He used to do acrobatic tricks inside a giant spinning steel wheel. His wife used to be a trapeze artist and now works with the llamas, the goats and the kangaroo.

Members of the crew work on the grid, a massive aluminum structure that will eventually be hoisted 40 feet into the air. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Members of the crew work on the grid, a massive aluminum structure that will eventually be hoisted 40 feet into the air.

Lorelei Owens, the head of pyro, was once a fire-eater, glass walker and silk aerialist. She finished her college degree on the road with a small circus, then came to Ringling, instead of leaving the circus world. "These are my neighbors," she says. "These are my friends, this is my family."

Lorelei Owens is the head of pyrotechnics for the show. She used to perform in a sideshow, and finished her college degree while she was traveling with a small circus. The end of the Ringling Bros. is "heartbreaking," she says. "That's the first word that comes to mind." Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Some 300 people travel with the circus at any given time. Many fall in love, get married, have children. In some ways, it's a transient world — contracts end, the circus lineup rotates, and troupes are swapped out. But stick with the circus long enough, the Ringling crew say, and you'll see the same faces again and again, either on the train or at Ringling's winter home in Sarasota, Fla.

It's an ever-shifting community, but for a century and a half, it's always been there.

After the lights go down

So what happens after the last show in Uniondale?

Jerley Gutierrez says the end of the circus is shocking. Devastating. He's been with Ringling for decades, as a trapeze artist and now with concessions, where he runs the snow-cone stand.

"It's a good place and a safe environment to raise your kids," he says, his 2-year-old son sleeping in his arms. "I don't know where else on earth you can do something like this and still be with your family and have a job."

Performer Paulo dos Santos (left), who plays one of the central characters in "Out of this World," speaks with Cloty Gutierrez, the head of costume repair. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

"It's not the end of the world. But in a kind of way, it is. For us."

He doesn't know what his family will do next.

Some people, like Owens, are joining other traveling shows. Some, like Klose the dog- and pig-trainer, will look for new venues for their performances, from fairs to half-time shows. Others are heading home — to Las Vegas or Sarasota, mostly – to regroup.

And some still don't know.

Cotton candy and circus souvenirs are sold at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore. The concessions staff travel with the circus; some have lived on the road with Ringling for decades. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Cotton candy and circus souvenirs are sold at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore. The concessions staff travel with the circus; some have lived on the road with Ringling for decades.

"We'll see," Tchalabaeva says, asked about her dozens of horses and her Cossack Riders and grooms. "Life will show us. ... We're just looking to see what's best out there, for all of us."

The circus priest is mournful. "We always have an expression, you know, we never say goodbye — we say, 'see you down the road, because we usually pick up where we left off," Hogan says. "Well, that's going to be changing pretty soon."

But Undarmaa Gold is confident that even as the performers go their separate ways, this community will live on — one way or another.

"Always, forever, together."

A team of unicyclists hold on to each other backstage. The King Charles Troupe has been playing basketball on unicycles since the '60s. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A team of unicyclists hold on to each other backstage. The King Charles Troupe has been playing basketball on unicycles since the '60s.

• Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

• The University Library
• Library news

Who is that clown? Researching Victorian circus photographs

In October 2017 the National Fairground and Circus Archive was fortunate in being able to acquire an important collection of photographs and documents relating to Sanger’s Circus.

Sanger’s Circus  was arguably one of the most pre-eminent and famous circuses in the Victorian era. The Sangers created a circus dynasty, produced, and travelled many different types of circuses through different branches of the family. This collection of photographs offers an extraordinary glimpse into the everyday life of these circus people.

My job is to digitise and publish information on these photographs on our online portal,  NFCA Digital .

I have some basic biographical information on the Sanger Circus family but in no way am I an expert on Victorian Circus. So just where do I start?

Well, I start by looking at the photographs for any clues. It looks like somebody has written on the front of some of them in biro. (A note for readers: this a major no-no in archival circles. However, it is acceptable to write in soft pencil on the back of a photograph. Unlike ink, pencil is reversible and shouldn’t cause damage. Writing in pencil on the reverse will also not affect the appearance of the photograph. Archives would generally only write a discrete identity number on the back but for your own personal photographs, it is a useful way to retain information for the future).

The writing may offer some clues as to who some of the people in the photographs could be.

Another collection item that may be of help with this detective work is a circus programme listing acts for a performance of ‘Lord’ George Sanger’s Circus circa 1900 (Sanger wasn’t really a Lord, it was a title he decided to give to himself. His brother John liked this idea too and also titled himself ‘Lord’).

I decide to cross-reference these sources of information by looking at the autobiography of ‘Lord’ George Sanger  Seventy Years a Showman  published in 1908. This features many fascinating anecdotes from the author’s life story but it was written by a showman of the greatest order, who was prone to exaggeration and tall tales.The book has very few images, although George Sanger himself is shown. Is it a reliable source of information? We will have to see.

In addition, I also find information in the Circus Friends Association publication King Pole which features a special article on ‘Lord’ John Sanger. Most notably the article features family trees on both John and George’s branches of the family.

Further help is acquired from the University of Sheffield expert historian Professor Vanessa Toulmin who kindly shares some of her unpublished research with me. I also have access to research by the late  John Turner  whose two volumes of a Victorian Arena: The Performers: A dictionary of British Circus Biography coupled with his database prove invaluable. These sources add more meat to the bones but I also become aware of inconsistencies in the database that I need to treat with caution.

After digitisation, the digital images are put on to the cataloguing system. Some records have notably more information and some have very little at all. I begin to recognise familiar faces and can now name a few of them on sight. Some of these people are finally beginning to come alive to me.

Their stories slowly begin to emerge.

Quite a few of the photographs feature a female performer, possibly an acrobat or aerial performer. One of these photographs has, what I think is the word ‘Jetta’, written on the front. A search on the internet reveals nothing. It is only when I happen upon a sentence in a book  The Sanger story: being George Sanger Coleman’s story of his life with his grandfather ‘Lord’ George Sanger  by John Lukens that I find a reference to Yetta Schultz. It mentions Yetta (Jetta) being trained in tightrope walking by George Sanger himself. Eureka moments of discovery like this are very exciting but still rare. 

The next stage of research is a stroke of luck.

The National Fairground and Circus Archive receives an invitation to interview a descendant of George Sanger himself. The descendant is in her nineties, both her parents were travelling circus performers and she spent much of her childhood living with her grandparents. They were also contemporaries of some of the people featured in the Victorian photographs from our collection. As I present copies of some of the photographs, thrillingly she starts to point to individuals and offers names. She also has similar photographs and recalls discussing these with her grandparents during her childhood.

Further names emerge from the past: equestrian performers Harry and George Austin; clown and acrobat George Holloway; equestrian Kate Holloway; clown James Holloway; equestrian Ellen ‘Topsy’ Coleman; equestrian and music hall performer Marie Reeves… The names go on.

I search for references in nineteenth-century newspapers at the British Library to help with dates. I am also lucky in receiving information from another Sanger relative and another from a local historian. Further, the Library is trialling Ancestry.com and through this I obtain census returns including the whole of ‘Lord’ John Sanger’s circus, recorded in a moment of time whilst travelling in Cheshire. I also am able to cross-reference some of the information with other Sanger material in our collections.

Throughout this project, I have steadily expanded my knowledge on the Sanger Circus family and on Victorian Circus in the UK. I have become drawn into a little known but exciting world of spectacle and wonder and I am totally hooked. I have experienced the contrasting emotions of frustration and revelation. However, I still feel that I have only scratched the surface, as there are still so many performers to be identified, stories to be told and endless questions still to be asked. However, I’ll have to leave that for other researchers, students and academics to discover.

Here is a link to the  records  that I have managed to create so far (but if any of you know who this clown is I’d be grateful for your help).

Andrew Moore – Digital and Exhibitions Officer

For more like this piece, check out our  Unique and Distinctive Collections  blog pages!

Ask a question

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +44 114 222 7200

UK Contemporary Circus History

A History of the Contemporary Circus in Britain from the late 1960s to 2006

This chapter follows a timeline from the late 1960s to 2006 as an overview of developments during this time and is a starting point for further investigation and discussion.. Geographically the greatest range of new circus creation over this timescale in the UK has been in and around Bristol, in London, Yorkshire (notably Sheffield, Leeds and Hebden Bridge), Manchester and Rochdale, Cardiff and Swansea in Wales, and Belfast in Northern Ireland. The chapter may have a London bias as I have generally lived there. FromTraditional to New Circus In the 1950s and early 60s the three principal circuses operating in England were Bertram Mills, Billy Smart’s and Chipperfield’s. All three shows featured wild and domestic animals, human acts from around the world and a ringmaster. Through live touring and television exposure they established an iconic image of circus, which remains in our folk memory to this day. Billy Smart’s was regularly shown on the BBC, typically after the Queen’s Christmas broadcast, until it stopped touring in 1973 and Chipperfield’s was regularly shown on ITV, which started broadcasting in 1955. Bertram Mills, which closed in 1964, was not in favour of being broadcast. Circus and other speciality acts could also be seen on the ITV variety show, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, one of the most popular television programmes, from 1955 to 1967. In the 1960s it became very apparent that the pop groups, such as The Beatles, being shown within the format of the variety bill had a different culture and audience. This led to the development of music only programmes such as Top of the Pops in 1964 and the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1971, in preference to the variety shows and fewer speciality acts were shown on television. There was a feeling that ‘traditional’ circus had become generic and fossilised, more a part of our heritage than a contemporary art form. It is worth noting then that much of the contemporary circus has roots in the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture. This era saw the development of the women’s liberation, gay rights, peace, anti-racism and the environment movements, and a challenge to the consumerist, capitalistic society and the mass-media that represented it. Many theatre companies had a significant social agenda, wanting to express and realise political ideals and reach beyond the traditional theatre going public. There was a strong belief in being inclusive, in empowering communities, and in encouraging people to actively participate rather than solely spectate or consume. There were experimental cross-art performances, site-specific events, happenings and festivals. Circus skills fitted right into this milieu; from stilt-walking Uncle Sam caricatures to multi-person club-passing representing what can be achieved through co-operation. The established circus practice towards creating a show was to book a range of established acts, which allows a new show to be toured each year with a minimum of rehearsal. In contrast, the emerging companies focussed more on devising and rehearsing as an ensemble. This was time intensive but allowed the performers to build stronger relationships with each other, and the companies to develop a greater depth of character and story and a more cohesive approach to music and costume. American companies that influenced developments in Britain included the San Francisco Mime Troupe, from which performers Larry Pisoni and Peggy Snider would form The Pickle Family Circus in San Francisco in 1975 and Paul Binder would form New York’s Big Apple Circus in 1977, and Peter Shumann’s Bread and Puppet Theatre, which had an annual Domestic Resurrection Circus each year from 1974 to 1998. Shumann wrote: Our Domestic Resurrection Circus will be an effort to find a new way of doing circus that is more human, that is not merely a collection of superlatives, of extraordinary feats arbitrarily mixed together, but something that becomes a story of the world circus. We don’t use circus techniques: the heaviest acrobatics done in our circus is a somersault. Or the horse is done by somebody putting on a horse mask. In that respect, it’s only a parody of a circus […] It has to do with just creating a big outside attraction for the people in the area. It’s a piece that shouldn’t be travelled, something we want to perform where we can integrate the landscape, that we can do with real time and real rivers and mountains and animals. It’s something that is seen in the woods, up there in the hills, back here in the river. I guess it would be called an “environment!” (in Kourilsky 1974:107-08) Kourilsky, Françoise 1974 “Dada and Circus.” TDR 18, 1 (T61):104-09. One person who influenced the interest in circus was Hovey Burgess who taught circus skills from the early 1970s in New York, wrote papers and, in 1976, publishing a book called Circus Techniques, illustrated with photographs of Hovey and others demonstrating juggling, static trapeze and simple acrobatic moves. Variety and Vaudeville were also revisited, with the terms New Variety (in England) and New Vaudeville (in America) used by young artists who revisited old television programmes and talked to the old artistes. ‘The New American Circus’ by Ernest Albrecht is a useful guide to the evolution in America. The Late 1960s and the 1970s in the UK The foundations were laid during this time for the new British circus companies of the mid 1980s. Welfare State International, Footsbarn, Peter Brook’s ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ and the Friends Roadshow; Glastonbury Festival and London’s Roundhouse venue are important in the emergence of a contemporary circus style in the UK. 1964 – date The Roundhouse, a large, round disused locomotive building in Camden, London, became Centre 42, named after the trade union movement Article 42 stating that the arts should be for everyone. This legendary, cutting edge performing arts venue hosted everything from early shows of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd to avant-garde theatre, from the likes of Peter Brook, and a range of circus. While traditional circus proprietors Robert Brothers were the first to put a circus into the venue, over Christmas 1969/70, most of the circuses to follow were less conventional, such as Jerome Savary’s Grand Magic Circus (et ses animaux tristes) from France in 1972. While using the word Circus and alluding to circus in the performance this was much more an over-the-top avant-garde theatre for an adult audience than a recognisable family oriented circus. This company, which returned to London, though not the Roundhouse, in 1980/81, was an inspiration to new circus practitioners, below, such as Toby Philpott and Ra-Ra Zoo’s Dave Spathaky, as were Circus Oz (founded in 1977) which made its first London appearance at the Roundhouse in 1980, and San Francisco’s co-operative, counter-culture Pickle Family Circus (founded in 1975) in 1981. 1970 Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Roundhouse Considered the defining twentieth century production of the play, the set by Brook and his designer, Sally Jacobs, was a white box with actors at times making use of trapezes and stilts. 1968 – 2006 Welfare State International “was started in 1968 by a tribe of artists, poets, musicians and pyrotechnicians – wayward dreamers in search of ‘entertainment, an alternative and a way of life’. We would be Guardians of the Unpredictable, travelling the world, creating site-specific celebratory theatre. Eyes on stalks. Not bums on seats.” John Fox, co-founder, The Guardian 4 Jan 2006. The company was renowned for its fire festivals, lantern parades, rites of passage, community carnivals and site-specific theatre and circus was not to be a significant aspect of the company’s 38 year life, but in 1969 they presented Earthrise, their first multi-media show with Mike Westbrook’s band, astronauts, light show, films, images and 20 gymnasts plus circus acts at the Mermaid Theatre, London, and from 1970 to 1972 they had a group called ‘Cosmic Circus’, founded by John Fox and Mike Westbrook, which actually presented large-scale, once-off high technology shows. John Fox and Sue Gill, founder members of Welfare State International, became Patrons of the Bristol based circus school, Circomedia. 1970 – date Footsbarn Travelling Theatre Created in Cornwall, but based in mainland Europe since 1980, Footsbarn is an itinerant tented company rooted in popular theatre with “a certain aesthetic, the traveling players and storytellers of older times, with a particular passion for Shakespeare and Moliere and other classic Universal stories. Movement, burlesque, masks and original music are given as much importance as text. The actors possess a multiplicity of talents and theatrical techniques all of which inhabit and enrich every performance”  www.footsbarn.toutatis.com  . Footsbarn had an irreverent clown based musical performance in the late 1970s called Circus Tosov, with a record of that name produced in 1978. Their work influenced companies such as Bim Mason’s Mummerandada, below. 1970 – date The Glastonbury Festival, best known for music was initiated by Michael and Jean Eavis in 1970. Theatre and street performance, including circus, have been a part from very early on. Arabella Churchill was a co-organiser of the 1971 festival and still runs the massive Theatre and Circus side of Glastonbury. Since 1989 the festival has featured a dedicated circus field. 1972 Friends Roadshow American clown Jango Bates and Nola Rae, an Australian dancer and Marcel Marceau trained mime, came together in London and created a loose company of fools called ‘Friends Roadshow’. The Friends Roadshow spread abroad and led to the creation in Amsterdam of the Festival of Fools which ran from 1975 to 1984 and was a meeting point and inspiration for many – including Richie Smith and Jon Beedell who formed street theatre company Desperate Men in 1980. Richie (under the name Dante Agostini) subsequently directed shows for UK companies NoFitState Circus, Circus Burlesque and Swamp Circus. 1974 French company Le Palais des Merveilles, directed by Jules Cordiere, performed at the International Performance Festival outdoors in Birmingham City Centre. “Their work is outwardly reminiscent of the street players of the Commedia del’Arte in Italy, making use of tight-rope walkers, clowns, acrobats, fire-eaters and giants.” (from original programme) 1975 Reg Bolton (1945 – 2006), a pioneer of community circus who had studied literature at university, qualified as a primary teacher, worked with Lindsay Kemp Mime Company and run Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh producing plays for children, created Suitcase Circus and introduced circus skills into the streets and housing estates of Edinburgh. Reg spent a short time studying at L’Ecole Nationale du Cirque, Annie Fratellini’s Circus School in Paris which was founded in 1974 and then ran three Edinburgh Summer Circus Schools, from 1977 to 1979 attracting students from Scotland, England and overseas. The teachers included Annie Stainer (who studied at the London Schol of Contemporary Dance and with Etienne Decroux in Paris, and was Reg’s wife), actor and director Emil Wolk (who trained in mime with Etienne Decroux, in acrobatics with Tudor Bonno, Johnny Hutch and Eugene Balla – the latter two of whom influenced and taught many of the emerging artists of the 1970s and 80s), puppeteer and juggler Toby Philpott (who ran workshops at the Oval House with Emil), aerialist Paula Melbourne, and Franki Anderson who would set up School for Fools with John Lee and subsequently be the director of training at Fooltime, Britain’s first permanent circus school. Reg developed community Children’s Circuses in the Craigmillar and Pilton housing estates in Edinburgh. One participant, Willie Ramsey, went on to Gerry Cottle’s Circus School in 1984 and remains a key member of Gerry’s team. In 1981, Suitcase Circus organised the first ever Community Circus Festival, in Manchester, featuring performances from 6 or 7 groups from various parts of England and Scotland. Reg Bolton wrote two seminal books: Circus in a Suitcase, a guide to creating community circus, in 1983 and the Gulbenkian funded New Circus in 1985. In 1985, the Bolton family moved to Perth, Western Australia, and Reg continued to run community circus until his death in 2006. 1976 – 1982 Cunning Stunts Formed by Iris Walton, this was a ‘gathering of wild women performers, musicians and comediennes show could all either acrobat, fly, juggle or fall-about. And if you couldn’t, well you would, because we all taught each other. There were no circus schools then. You had to go searching, seeking, finding your teachers. Learn, bring back and share! I found Eugene Balla. A great circus acrobat and performer, a master teacher and a unique and wonderful man who, at the age of 85, still teaches me.’ (Iris Walton, Circus Symposium 1997) 1977 – date London International Mime Festival Instigated by mime artist Nola Rae and producer Joseph Seelig, the festival, now co-directed by Joseph Seelig and Helen Lannaghan, has always featured a broad range of professional, non text-based work including animation theatre, circus, mask, mime, clown and visual theatre. It has been a champion of contemporary circus and has presented a substantial amount of international and British new circus, such as Annie Fratellini’s contemporary circus company Circus Fratellini, featuring students from her school, in 1984 and the first full show of Ra-Ra Zoo (below) which broke new ground in the UK through combining theatrical effect with pure skill in 1985. 1978 – date The first European Juggling Convention was held in Brighton with 11 jugglers including Toby Philpott, and Stuart Fell, Lynn Thomas and Tim Bat who continue to perform. The 27th Convention held in 2004 near Lille in France attracted almost 4500 jugglers. Typical of the community aspect of the new circus movement, the conventions are organised by volunteers in a different town each year and the price is kept as low as possible. As well as space for jugglers to throw things at each other and a range of workshops, the Conventions have formal and informal stages with every range of performer from the absolute beginner to the world’s finest. The 1970s saw the start of classes/workshops at the Oval House theatre in London in improvisation, mime, juggling, and acrobatics; and at Interaction and Pineapple Dance Studio in juggling, while Ronnie Wilson ran mime classes at the City Lit and Desmond Jones, who had studied in France with mime teachers Etienne Decroux and, to a lesser extent, Jacques Lecoq, opened his School of Mime in 1979. Alongside the ‘alternative culture’ companies there were other notable circus activities: 1970 Gerry Cottle and Brian Austen started their own circus, having been performing with a show run by the Fossett circus family. By 1977 Gerry Cottle was touring two circuses, with the Blue Unit staring clown Charlie Cairoli, while the Red Unit starred animal trainer Mary Chipperfield. Subsequently, as described below, Gerry Cottle would start an all-human circus and circus school in1984. Since the 1990s Cottle and Austen’s Circus, the Moscow State Circus and the Chinese State Circus have all toured under the European Entertainment Corporation owned by the two men. In 2003 Cottle sold out his share to Austen in order to be able to purchase the Wookey Hole Caves tourist attraction in Somerset. 1971 Moscow State Circus performed in London, featuring clown Oleg Popov who had been with the show on its first visit in 1956. The Moscow State Circus returned in 1985, when it toured from July to September, mainly in theatres, and again starred Oleg Popov. The Moscow State Circus returned in 1988 for the first big top tour in UK, and has toured annually since 1995. While the shows have been act focussed, the fact that all the acts were from the USSR, which invested massively in circus and has had a circus school since 1927, gave a cohesive quality. While the original visits included animals (including polar bears in 1956) animals haven’t been included since 1985. 1975 Chinese Acrobatic Troupe from Chungking made their first visit to the Coliseum (home of the English National Opera), not returning to the UK until 1984. The shows did not have animals and presented acts of high skill with a distinct Chinese aesthetic and music. 1975 – 1977, Seaside Special – circus/variety spectaculars, recorded in Gerry Cottle’s big-top, were broadcast by the BBC 1976 – 1985, The Circus World Championships were broadcast each year. For the first years they were broadcast by the BBC then switched to ITV, with Norman Barrett as the regular Ringmaster. The format of the Championships was to select around five circus disciplines each year and have two or three acts competing in each, plus some additional acts (typically with animals) to balance the programme. The co-creator of the Championships was Ivor David Balding who subsequently worked for Chipperfields Circus and the Big Apple Circus before setting up Circus Flora in America in 1986 – a circus which aims to tell a story, and which inspired Nell Gifford to start Gifford’s Circus in England in 2000 (see below). David Balding’s nephew, Gerald Balding, joined Gifford’s Circus for the first few seasons. The 1980s Margaret Thatcher became Conservative Prime Minister in 1979, through to 1990, and the 1980s saw the Falklands War, the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common, the Miners Strike of 1984/5, and the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986. The Government funding to the Arts Council of Great Britain was capped, meaning an effective reduction. The new circus movement became very popular and circus schools and companies were started but all struggled to grow and survive given very little access to funding during these years. 1980 – 1981 Lumiere & Son Theatre Company toured Circus Lumiere, devised by David Gale and Hilary Westlake with the company supported by the Wimbledon School of Art Theatre Design Department. The aim was to create a dark circus aiming to “return to the art of clowning an energy and certain demonic qualities that were plainly lacking in all contemporary displays of that art.” The show was performed by actors rather than technique driven acts and featured a man scooping out spoonfuls of his own brain and eating them, and a strongman eating a brillo pad (in reality a painted shredded wheat!). In 1982 the company produced ‘Son of Circus Lumiere’ at the ICA, and reprised Circus Lumiere at the London International Circus Festival in 1988. Le Grand Magic Circus, Footsbarn, Welfare State and Lumiere & Son are examples of companies that utilised elements of circus within their imaginative, theatrical performance. They didn’t seek high levels of technical circus skill. The early 1980s saw the arrival in England from abroad of new circus shows combining an increasingly high level of technical circus skill with a contemporary theatrical style emphasising the creativity of the performer, ensemble playing and a heightened political awareness. 1980 Circus Oz, which was founded in late 1977 with the principles of “collective ownership and creation, gender equity, a uniquely Australian signature and team-work. … The founding members of Circus Oz loved the skills and tricks of traditional circus but wanted to make a new sort of show that a contemporary audience could relate to, adding elements of rock’n’roll, popular theatre and satire. They wanted it to be funny, irreverent and spectacular, a celebration of the group as a bunch of multi-skilled individual women and men, rather than a hierarchy of stars. Above all, they didn’t want to take themselves too seriously. They sewed and welded together their own circus tent, got together a collection of old trucks and caravans and went on the road. Circus Oz was a fresh and original voice in circus and the company was immediately popular with Australian audiences.” ( www.circusoz.com.au/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=103&languageId=1&contentId=-1)  The Company was first brought to the UK in November 1980 by producers Hetherington-Seelig, touring London, Norwich, Bath and Chichester. Circus Oz returned in 1987 for the London International Festival of Theatre; in 1988 for the Edinburgh Festival; and in 1991, 2004 and 2005. 1980 London premiere of Le Cirque Imaginaire, featuring Victoria Chaplin (one of Charlie Chaplin’s daughters), Jean-Baptiste Thierrée and their two children Aurélia and James. In 1970 Victoria Chaplin joined up with actor and director. Thierrée, who was dreaming of a renewed, innovative style of circus. From 1971 to 1974 they toured Le Cirque Bonjour with some 30 artists plus deer and horses. Some years later the couple moved towards a more personal approach of the world of circus creating Le Cirque Imaginaire featuring themselves and their two children Aurélia and James. This premiered in London in 1980 and then returned for a longer run from Dec 1982 – April 1983. In 1990 Le Cirque Invisible was created and toured internationally. In the new millennium the children developed their own shows, Aurélia touring ‘Aurélia’s Oratorio’ and James Thierrée’s Compagnie du Hanneton touring ‘The Junebug Symphony’. 1981 San Francisco’s co-operative, counter-culture Pickle Family Circus, founded in 1975, performed at London’s Roundhouse. 1981 The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Californian long-haired, black-clad and very funny juggling troupe (1974 – date), had a 6 week run of ‘Juggling and Cheap Theatrics’ at the Mayfair Theatre, London (and took the opportunity to perform an interval set at a Grateful Dead concert at London’s Rainbow – where I saw them and was inspired to become a juggler). The FKBs returned to the UK to perform in the Edinburgh International Festival in 1986 with ‘Juggle and Hyde’ and 1990 with ‘Club!’ 1981 – date Philippe Genty Company made their first appearance in UK at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, then 1990 and 1991 Edinburgh International Festival, and 1991 Sadler’s Wells, and London International Mime Festival 1992. The mix of puppetry and movement in his imaginative, beautifully staged shows has been a continuing inspiration to new circus artists. 1981 – 1983 Barnum, a major West End musical, telling the life of the famous showman and using circus skills, opened at the London Palladium starring Michael Crawford. Barnum subsequently toured and returned to the West End and cast members during this time who went onto perform in new circus companies included Jo Robley-Dixon, Jackie Sysum and Alan Heap. 1980 Covent Garden Market reopened and rapidly established itself as the centre for Street Entertainment in London, the equivalent of the Pompidou Centre in Paris. At the time of its reopening the area was the home of London’s alternative culture.As there were no venues for the emerging speciality acts to perform, the street pitch became the meeting place for jugglers, acrobats, magicians, comedians and musicians, with a regular juggling workshop taking place in the adjoining Jubilee Hall. Maggie Pinhorn, of Alternative Arts, described the development: “The plan then (1960s) was to demolish most of Covent Garden to build new hotels, conference centres, ring roads and offices. In 1971 the Covent Garden Community Association was formed to fight these plans and present alternative ones which preserved the environment and the community. In that same year Alternative Arts was founded to support the local community by presenting entertaining events, helping with neighbourhood festivals, puppet festivals and encouraging the formation of the renowned Covent Garden Community Theatre… In 1975 Alternative Arts presented its first season of Street Theatre in front of the Portico of St Paul’s Church…. When the Market reopened again as a shopping centre in 1980 Alternative Arts invited lots more individual entertainers to come and perform in the Piazza.” P8/9 Time Out Street Entertainers Festival Programme 1984. The Festival was started in 1982 and a programme on it shown from 1983 to 1985 on Channel 4. 1979 – 1994 The Paul Daniels magic show featured guest variety and circus artists. In the mid 80s the producer, John Fisher, included inspirational new wave acts not shown elsewhere on television in the UK such as American jugglers Airjazz (1986) and the UK street jugglers Mr Adams and Mr Dandridge. The 1980s saw the growth of the Alternative Comedy circuit, with many venues and promoters starting following The Comedy Store, which started in Soho in 1979. which offered reasonably regular work to a number of new variety acts used to working on the streets such as comedy jugglers Steve Rawlings and Paul Morocco, and The Long and the Short of It (myself and Olly Crick). The new circuit included CAST New Variety, established by Roland and Clare Muldoon (later to run and restore the Hackney Empire). Rachel Clare who worked for CAST New Variety went onto work with Ra Ra Zoo and in the new millennium produces James Thierree and Aurelia’s Oratorio amongst others with her company ‘Crying Out Loud’. 1984 Goffeee the Clown (David Goff Eveleigh), who had started clowning with Gerry Cottle’s Circus in 1976, organised the first of ten New Circus Conventions on April 1st 1984 in Monmouth (though most were held in Hay-on-Wye), and founded Circus Dda, probably the first travelling and tented New Circus Show, with a show based on the early Wesh poet Taliesin. Running for just one season, the circus toured around Wales and the Welsh Borders 1984 – 1994 Ra-Ra Zoo In 1984 Dave Spathaky teamed up with Sue Broadway, Stephen Kent and Sue Bradley while at the Edinburgh Festival to form Ra-Ra Zoo, a company that was to break new ground in the UK through combining theatrical effect with pure skill. Dave Spathaky was one of the Amazing Mendezies duo, with Chris Adams, which was the top street juggling act of the early 1980s in Covent Garden. Sue Broadway (an aerialist and founder member of Circus Oz) and Stephen Kent (musical director of Circus Oz for two years) had come to London with Tooth Tooth Tooth an “Eccentric mixture of the comic and skilful – juggling, acrobatics and fire-eating.” 1984 Street Entertainer of the Year festival programme and Sue Bradley was a member of a busking/cabaret musical group, Pookiesnackenburger (with Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas who subsequently created Stomp, which was to become a West End hit). “Ra-Ra Zoo…..is at the forefront of your wildest dreams; in the middle of the air and on ground; a company of comic performers who provide and ecstatic blend of lunatic juggling, aerial dance, heartbreaking platespinning, escapology, magic, acrobatics and much more. Original live music stuns the action…laugh?….your teeth’ll fall out….” (Programme 1986) “Ra-Ra Zoo believe that Circus is a theatrical entertainment that can be enjoyed by everyone; a popular art-form that transcends the barriers of class, age, sex, culture and language. They are part of a world wide community of performers who are rediscovering Circus and have forged links with groups and performers in Australia, China, Spain, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany and America. They have a commitment to live original music, can work in the largest venues and outdoors and provide invigorating and exciting shows which can appeal to anyone.” (Programme 1986) Their main four-hander show, which officially premiered at the London International Mime Festival in 1985, was My Life on a Plate of Toast, which ran in several versions from 1984-86 and in 1988. Other full shows were Domestic Bliss, 1987, directed by Joe Page (and which featured Deborah Pope later to form No Ordinary Angels, below) Stop Laughing This Is Serious, 1989, directed by Ben Keaton (and which featured aerialist Lindsey Butcher, Sean Gandini who would form Gandini Juggling, and Mark Digby and Ali Houillebecq who would form the duo Le La Les), with musician Shirley Pegna who has been involved in many new circus productions. Fabulous Beasts, 1991, directed by Roy Hutchins. Gravity Swing, 1992, directed by Sue Broadway (and which featured Jeremy Robins who would create the erotic ‘Slippery When Wet’ acrobatic act on and in a bathtub in the late 1990s and Jackie Sysum who would work with Circus Senso and Cirque Surreal) Angels and Amazons, 1992, directed by Debbie Oates, with an all female cast Swan, a community show which laid the groundwork for White Snake, 1993, directed by Deborah Pope of No Ordinary Angels. Cabinet of Curiosities, 1994 Dave Spathaky has written an entry for Wikipedia, including: “They (Ra-Ra Zoo) toured internationally for ten years playing in theatres notably to Africa, South America, Australia and extensively in Europe. Their show under the joint Artistic Direction of David Spathaky and Sue Broadway combined the ethos of ‘alternative’ comedy of the 1980 with a 1970s revival of Circus skills, variously called ‘New or Neo Circus’ which largely promoted human skill without the use of animals. Their background in street performing and the influential Circus Oz gave the show an irreverent, fast paced, surrealist feel. They produced several different shows and were occasionally supported in the UK by the Arts Council and other grants. Several large scale community shows and touring two shows at the same time in the early 1990s created work for over twenty five people simultaneously at times. They adhered to a political commitment of a balance of men and women on stage and of equal pay for all company members throughout their existence. Ra-Ra Zoo was influenced by the agitprop and political theatre of the late 1960’s and early 70’s and the ritual theatre and ‘Happenings’ associated with it notably the ‘Grand Magic Circus’,’Circus Oz’,’The Festival of Fools’ in Amsterdam & ‘Pina Bauch’. Political influence also came from the rising awareness of the feminism movement and political direct action like the protests at Greenham Common in the UK and the general resurgence of ‘street theatre’ in Europe.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra-Ra_Zoo Ra-Ra Zoo were the ground-breakiing, inspirational company for a generation but regrettably they only ever received project funding from the Arts Council. In Dave Spathaky’s view this lack of security impacts on the ability to produce good work and in the end the lack of Arts Council commitment killed off Ra-Ra Zoo. 1983 – date Ian and Trea Scott-Owen started Albert and Friends Youth Circus with a two week project. They developed into the largest youth circus in London and held an International Festival of Youth Circus at Riverside Studios in 2004 and 2006. 1984 -1985 Gerry Cottle’s Circus School. Working with circus trainer and choreographer Basil Schoultz, Gerry Cottle brought together a group of 16 – 24 year olds to train in circus skills and form a new ‘student’ circus company integrated with professional troupes and supported by a live band. The all-human show, which ran for two seasons, was reminiscent in style of the poetic imagery of Bernard Paul’s Circus Roncalli which was started in Vienna, Austria in 1976. The show introduced 16 year old Willie Ramsay, who came from Reg Bolton’s Pilton Community Circus and who continued to perform regularly with Gerry Cottle into the new millennium, and the cradle act of Andrew Watson and Jacqueline Williams. Andrew and Jacqueline went on to perform with Circus Senso, then with Circus Roncalli before joining Cirque du Soleil in 1987 for ‘We Reinvent The Circus’. Andrew went onto become Director of Creation for Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai and Zumanity, following a creative role with the aerial aspect of the Millennium Dome’s central show. Jacqueline was course director of Zippo’s Academy of Circus Arts before setting up the Circus Maniacs school in Bristol. Also in the company were Gregoire Carel who went on to perform with Mummerandada and NoFitState Circus, and Julian Wisdom, who went on to perform with Circus Burlesque and The Circus Space and now teaches at the National Institute of Circus Arts in Australia. Gerry Cottle’s Circus Parade souvenir brochure of c1989/90 stated that the effects of councils banning performances with animals on their land had “been to largely deprive the people of the capital of the chance to see a traditional (with animals) circus. Faced with this dilemma, in 1994 we took what we later realised to be a mistaken decision, and presented a circus without animals. It ran for two years and received considerable critical acclaim (though no support from the councils who had led us into this course of action), but it was too ‘theatrical’ for the average circusgoer. Surveys showed that audiences missed the animals, and in 1986 we complied with the wishes of our audiences and brought back the horses, elephants, lions, tigers and the rest.” 1985 Circus UK Circus UK, which produced the show Circus Senso, came from two sources: Maggie Pinhorn of Covent Garden based Alternative Arts and Jenny Harris, Director of the Albany Empire in Deptford, South London, who ran a circus course following a six month sabbatical researching new developments in circus. Their inspiration came from the streets and from the new circuses of Australia, America and Europe. Circus Senso was produced in 1986 at the Albany Empire. Directed by Terry O’Connell, from Circus Oz, the show balanced youthful performers, supported by a two month training course, with the skill and experience of third-generation performer Brian Dewhurst (aka Brian Andro), a virtuoso on the tight-wire. The aerial choreography was by Helen Crocker, a former gymnast and graduate of London Contemporary Dance School who would subsequently teach at Fooltime and co-found Circomedia. Other members of Circus Senso included Brian Dewhurst’s children Nicky and Sally, and Andrew Watson and Jacqueline Williams who joined from Gerry Cottle’s and then went onto Roncalli then Soleil. John Turner then redirected Circus Senso for the Greater London Council Farewell Festival from 20 – 31 March 1986 in a little big top at the South Bank Centre, and subsequently produced a show for Christmas 1987 at the Hackney Empire with Lucy Allen, Brian Dewhurst, wire-walker Bernie Bennett, Sue Brent, Julie Day (Brian’s wife), Rogrigo Mattheus and Deb Pope (aerial duo No Ordinary Angels), Gina Powys, Rich Turner and Pete Gregory (of No Fit State), and street performer / alternative comedian Andre Vincent and a live band. A particular strength of Circus Senso was its strong and cohesive (if very 1980s) visual style, with great costumes, make-up and hair styling. The show was created without a production grant from the Arts Council of England, but was given a touring grant with the expectation that the show would tour large venues, rather than the medium scale that Maggie Pinhorn felt would be more suitable, and after a couple of seasons the show proved too difficult to tour. Cirque du Soleil founders Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix saw Brian Dewhurst in Circus Senso and he subsequently joined the young company. Now in his 70s, he is still performing in Soleil’s Las Vegas show, Mystère. Subsequent to Circus Senso, John Turner directed Circus Moon, which was presented at the Half-Moon Theatre in London’s East End at Christmas 1989 following an Arts Council funded training course with acrobat Johnny Hutch, magician Ian Keable, physical theatre director John Wright, Greta Mendez, aerialist Andrew Watson and acrobat/martial artist Ken Lewis as trainers. 1985 – date Belfast Community Circus Established by Donal McKendry and Mike Moloney in Northern Ireland to provide positive shared experiences for young people from different communities. Belfast Community Circus has its own building and its mission is “developing circus arts to as high a standard as possible whilst making participation and viewing as accessible as possible.” Alongside teaching children and young people, BCC acts as a training school for professional teachers and performers of circus arts. In 1999/2000 they moved into a purpose built space…. 1985 – 1991 Mummerandada Bim Mason, who started performing Circus Theatre in 1978 with Johnny Melville’s physical theatre company Kaboodle, founded Mummerandada with other students he met while studying with Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Mummerandada tried “to balance the emphasis on skills with more dramatic elements by using the strong passions involved in conflict, love and death, so that as well as characters and storyline there are substantial shifts in mood and pace, allowing space for a deeper emotional involvement. If this balance is not achieved a show can become rather too shallow and tricksy.” Bim Mason, The Fool Times, Summer 1987. The shows included ‘Hell Is Not So Hot’ (1988) inspired by the journey of Orpheus to the Underworld, combined with the surreal images of Hell by Bosch and the charming simplicity of the English Mystery Plays, and ‘Fools Gold’ (1990) an epic voyage beyond the point of no return. The programme notes say that “Mummerandada combine the simple theatre of Mummers plays with the surreal style of Dada – the art of the disturbingly absurd. Mummers plays are folk traditions, thought to be ancient rituals which encouraged the renewal of life forces by acting out scenes of death and resurrection. …. They are now one of Britain’s leading circus theatre troupes. They have created a unique style of popular style, successfully combining a high level of circus skills, including acrobatics, juggling, magic, knife-throwing, and brass band with mime, masks, clowning and stage combat. They aim to touch and provoke as well as to astound and entertain.” Mummerandada also included Kevin Brooking (American clown now resident in Belgium), Angela de Castro (subsequently to work with Slava Polunin in Snow Show), Gregoire Carel (who also worked with Gerry Cottle and No Fit State), and Ali Houlliebecq (later to form Le La Les with acrobat Mark Digby) 1985-1990 Circus Burlesque –– set up by Lecoq trained mime artist Mick Wall and marquee owner Henry Bassadone. In 1985 they undertook a small tour, with a ten week tour following in 1986, and a 3 month tour in 1987 ( this time supported by a small West Midlands Art grant). The cast of Mick Wall, Alan Heap, Jo Robley-Dixon, Thom Pod (musician), and Julian Wisdom were directed by Ben Benison. In 1989 they created Alice in Wonderland, written by Boris Howarth (who was Associate Artistic Director of Welfare State International from 1972 – 1986) and directed by Boris Howarth and Dante Agostini (aka Richie Smith of Desperate Men). The show, featuring David Hudson, Julian and Miki Wisdom, Maria Demelza (aka Rita van Opzeeland), Anne Quicke, Chris Hills (who had learnt flying at Jean Palacy’s school in France and is currently touring with NoFitState), Lucy Allen, and Sunshine Savage and was performed in the 1990 Islington International Circus Festival and at the Edinburgh Festival. The company had plans for an American tour in 1991 which didn’t come to fruition and the company ceased to tour. 1985 –date: No Fit State Circus “In 1985 college was finished and it was time to decide what to do in life. Some people got proper jobs, but five of us (Ali Williams, Tom Rack, Peter Gregory, Richard Turner and David Williams from a college group ‘Balls Up Jugglers’) decided we liked this performing lark and would try it full time. Thus NoFit State Circus was born and off to the enterprise allowance we went. A winter school and village hall tour followed by a summer of street and festival work saw us through our first year. We were lucky to get involved with Arts Play Umbrella early on and they passed a lot of bookings our way. This relationship developed into a Big Fun marquee tour that saw NoFit State and other companies touring the UK providing summer fun day packages to festivals and local authorities. 1991 – time for us to grow, buying our own 350 seater big top and providing large-scale circus theatre productions. That winter we begged, borrowed, hassled and pleaded eventually securing a sponsorship deal with ASW (a Cardiff steel manufacturer). This combined with a large overdraft and other debts gave us enough money to buy a second hand marquee, seating, lights and HGV. Many frantic months were spent on the phone ot bookers pleading for work and come summer 1991 we had a four and half month tour. We came out of this broke but with our debts paid off. Since then we have operated on similar lines gradually improving equipment, building new seats, trucks, members and most importantly a better show. Touring a marquee and show is a difficult business. New circus does not get proper funding or recognition, despite being accessible and popular with a wide spectrum of the population. Much of our year is spent administrating, fund raising, building and fixing, often leaving little time to train and rehearse. The cost of putting the tour on the road is astronomical and hard to get back. There is something special about working and living with a good bunch of people, working on your own ideas and the audience response to a good show. We have a formula that works for young or old wherever we perform – and hopefully you’ll see us around for a few years yet.” 1994 NFS Programme Totally Wicked (originally published in The Catch). NoFitState Circus is now Britain’s longest established new circus company. From 1991 to 1997 they had a different show each year, employing a writer who worked with the cast, and a director. The shows were Take a Chance (1991), The Defective Detective (1992) written by Luci Gorell Barnes and the company, directed by Dante Agostini (aka Richie Smith), and including Flick Ferdinando later to co-found Company FZ, Dodo Island (1993), Totally Wicked (1994) written and devised by Claire Hudman and the company, directed by Jamie Garvin, Autogeddon Warehouse (1995), Alice in Wonderland (1996) written by Katherine Jones and the company, directed by Jamie Garven and Bill Bellamy, Treasure Island (1997) Since 1998 NoFitState Circus have worked, initially through community shows Prophecy (1998) and Now-here (1999), towards a large-scale multi-media touring circus exploring themes of immortality. They acquired a 1000 capacity Silver Spaceship tent in 2002. That year they undertook Sci-Circus and realised ImMortal as a community show, with professional touring versions from 2004 onwards, achieving sell out runs in Edinburgh, good reviews and a high percentage of earned income. 1986 – date Zippos Circus In the 1996 programme, Martin Burton, aka Zippo the Clown, wrote “It is now twenty-four years since I created the character of Zippo the Clown, performing on the streets of London and Brighton. At the time I swore that I would never become a circus clown, then, in 1986 founded Zippo’s Circus and became known as one of Britain’s best-loved clowns. Zippo’s Circus was an instant success and grew each year, but I maintained that my circus remain all-human and never include animals. Now, in the tenth anniversary year of Zippo’s Circus, another dramatic change. For the 1996 season, I have introduced six beautiful Palomino horses and a gorgeous Shetland pony.” Zippos Circus has included horses ever since and has in recent years starred the veteran ringmaster Norman Barrett and his budgerigars. 1986 – 1993 Fool Time – The Centre for Circus Skills and Performing Arts Fool Time, providing the first significant professional circus education not tied to a company, was started in 1986 by Richard Ward with the Centre opening in a Victorian church hall in Bristol in April 1987, with evening workshops, weekend training and three full time courses that put together made a one year Basic Training course. In Patrick Boyd-Maunsell’s 1988 ‘Report to the Arts Council on Circus’ he wrote: “The project was initially capitalised by loans from Richard Ward. Other sources of initial funding were The Sports Council (£4,250), Gulbenkian Foundation (£12,000), Avon County Council (£1000), Bristol City (£500) and Marks and Spencer (£500). The Arts Council made a £2,000 grant for the initial course.” His suggested action for the Arts Council was that “Fooltime’s growth should be facilitated by a modest level of funding over a three-year period. Possibly £5,000 a year for three years linked to the loan repayment.” In contrast, the French, under the guidance of French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, had opened the fully funded Centre National des Arts du Cirque in a purpose restored circus building in Chalons-en-Champagne in January 1986. Offering a four year course, the school took 25 students a year from 350 hopefuls at France’s regional circus schools! In 1993 Fooltime failed as it was trying to effect a move to a new site, but Circomedia emerged in 1994 and succeeded in the development. 1986 – date Swamp Circus Theatre Formed by a collective of acrobats and dancers in a disused steel works in Sheffield in 1986, Swamp Circus Theatre describes itself as “an all human circus theatre with an environmentally flavoured artistic direction, a commitment to arts in the community and a taste for adventure!” They have undertaken a Moto – Edinburgh Festival 2000 and European tour 2001. 1986 Swamp formed as a collective of travelling acrobats and film-makers doing site specific shows in big warehouses and factories eg Sheffield 1986 Toured France and Spain with an acrobatic dance show with live music – The Magic Box 1987 Met other circus artistes at Hay-on-Wye Circus-Theatre Festival eg Paka, Kwabana Lindsay, John Lee…Inspired to train more 1987 Set up Circus Studio in disused steel works in Sheffield with Forced Entertainment Company 1988 Rock n Roll Clown show tour across Soviet Union. VIP status – joint work with Moscow State Circus (as was) 1989 Outings Tour – North / Midlands small scale theatres . Director Brett Jackson / David Bingham 1990 Numbskull – Directed at Lecoq Paris Tour France / UK Arts Festivals 1991 Egg Show collaboration with Circus Burlesque Big Top – Director = Richie (Desperate Men) 1992 Swamp Circus First Big Top Tour 1993 Sky Dance tour – Big top tour in England – Scotland 1994 Fundango – Big Top tour UK – Germany – Director = Deborah Pope 1995 Buy church and with BBC build Greentop Circus Centre – Sheffield. 1996 Tour Sky Juice and Swamp Circus School to built venues include Jacksons Lane Theatre London- Director Gerry Flanagan 1997 Swamp UK Big Top Tour of La Grand Bleu – director = Gerry Flanagan eg 3 week residency in Blythe Valley (near Newcastle) 1998 Grand Bleu Big Top tour in South France eg Terre En fete Festival Antibes 1999 South Bank tent shows – Midland Live. Start Circus School in Chanel Islands Millennium show in Channel Islands 2000 MOTO tour directed by Brett Jackson / Richie (ACE National Touring funding) Princess Street Gardens Edinburgh Festival 5* reviews 2001 30 theatre tour to Holland and Belgium / UK built venues 2002 MOTO II and Swamp Circus School UK tour/ Spain 2003 FRAGILE ( ACE FUNDED) Directed by Brett Jackson / Gerry Flanagan 2004 Fragile UK tour – built venues and arts festivals Swamp Launch Circo Kernow (Cornwall’s Circus and Film School) Tour of Clown Bites director Gerry Flanagan(ACE funding) eg Clock tower Croydon 2005 Fundango big top tour with circus school (ACE FUNDED) in South West – Director Brett Jackson 2006 Tour of Swamp Circus Cabaret – Big Top – Director Brett Jackson 1987 New Circus by Reg Bolton, ISBN 0903319373, funded and published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, was a ground-breaking book outlining the nature of new circus and the opportunities that circus offered communities and society in general. Reg Bolton pressed for circus to be taken seriously, for vocational training provision and for training in circus as a community art form. May 1988 Patrick Boyd Maunsell “Report to the Arts Council on Circus” Recognising the impact of community circus, which had been supported by Gulbenkian Foundation since 1978, and the impact of companies such as Circus Oz, this report profiled the wealth of circus activity forthcoming in the year, considered what new circus was in Britain at the time and made recommendations for the future. Four broad forms of new circus were noted: A) The extension of the use of circus skills into a theatrical context and within a story line. Examples included Circus Burlesque and Mummerandada. B) The traditional format of a sequence of acts presented for their own sake, but achieved within an overall production which prioritises the nature of performance and the artist/audience relationship above the pure display of breathtaking skills. Examples were Circus Senso and Ra-Ra Zoo. C) Participatory community/educational activity. Professional workshops and performances centred around the process of learning circus skills and often culminating in group performance. Examples included Pilton Circus in Edinburgh and Belfast Community Circus. D) Professional training The principal recommendation was the development of training resources to increase the skill level of emerging performers. The Arts Council Strategy and Report on Circus (Felicity Hall 2002) noted that the Arts Council was “not able to carry out the recommendations. It was only in the late 1990s that strategic interviention in the funding of circus as an artform began, particularly with the support of two conferences in 1997 and 1998.” In 2002/03 the Arts Council of England awarded £384,000 to circus projects nationally. The 2000/2001 allocation to Theatre was £42.8m 1988 The First British Juggling Convention, organised by Max Oddball (of the Oddball Juggling shop) and myself, took place at London’s Colombo Street sports centre. The annual conventions now attract around 750-1,000 jugglers. In 1988, perhaps co-incidentally the year of the London International Festival of New Circus, the widest range of circus was shown on television: a documentary on the festival; the Moscow State Circus; Le Cirque Imaginaire; Circus Lumiere; The (Greatest) Little Show on Earth – a documentary on the Albury-Wodonga, Australia, youth ‘Flying Fruit Flies Company’ who performed in London that year (the documentary features Simon Yates who would later found Acrobat which came to the Roundhouse in 2002); and a youthful Cirque du Soleil, while 1989 saw the anarchic French company Archaos profiled on the Edinburgh Nights programme. 1988 – date The International Workshop Festival Initiated by Greater London Arts and directed for the first few years by Nigel Jamieson, the annual festival features leading teachers of a large range of physical performance disciplines including circus. 1988 London International Festival of New Circus This was a first class showcase of contemporary circus at the time and was an initiative of Greater London Arts, the regional body of the Arts Council, presented in association with the South Bank Centre. Adrian Evans and Nigel Jamieson, the festival directors, brought together many of the leading lights of new circus. There were shows by France’s Centre National des Arts du Cirque (which was established in 1985), Circus Lumiere (above), The Shenyang Acrobatic Troupe, Ra Ra Zoo, jugglers Hot & Neon (originally with LIFT in 1985), Archaos, L’Ecole de Trapeze Volant Jean Palacy, Circus Senso, Os Paxaros; Mummerandada; The Pioneers; Belfast Community Circus; Tim Bat; Brahim; The Howlers; Die Kempowskys; Mr Adams and Mr Dandridge; Palfi; Haggis and Charlie; Pierre Hollins; Original Mixture; Shopping Trolley. The finale was a Ship of Fools presented by Rose English. Subsequently Nigel Jamieson moved to Australia, whilst Adrian Evans produced Archaos 1988 Following the huge success of its show, Le Chapiteau de Corde, at the London International Festival of New Circus, Adrian Evans co-produced Archaos in the UK and Scandinavia. The UK was the major audience for Archaos and the company achieved a mass change in the perception of what circus could be. Archaos was a French company started in 1984 by Pierrot Bidon who had previously toured the horse-drawn Cirque Bidon. With Archaos, Bidon created an anarchic, frightening company of misfits, often with great skill and with wit and style, which made the company very sexy and very funny in between the explosions. The first show, ‘Le Cirque de Caractere’ was performed in a 300 seat tent. In 1987 Archaos acquired a customised 650 seat tent (named The Condom) and toured a revised ‘Cirque de Caractere’ show, with music by Les Marcel Burins, building up to the 35 strong company that came to London. In 1989 a new show, ‘The Last Show on Earth’, toured in France before arriving in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it was a hit, subsequently enjoying sell-out runs in London. The show returned in 1990 to Brighton and Birmingham. 1990 also saw Archaos create ‘Bouinax’, with music by The Chihuahuas. The 60 strong company performed in a new industrial style tent, called le Fanny, seating 1250 people facing each other on huge grandstands. The show toured to Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol and London (where it sold out 57 shows). In 1991 ‘Bouinax’, rebranded ‘BX-91’ and adapted for a 3000 seat big top, toured to Brighton and Bristol in the UK. During 1991 Archaos also created ‘Metal Clown’ with music by Bahia Axe Bahia and The Thunderdogs, in a new 2,500 seat tent called The Cathedral. It came to Manchester and then went to Dublin where high winds destroyed the tent. The company regrouped and gave 44 shows in London. However it marked the end of the company’s touring to the UK, bar a brief visit in 1996 with a show called ‘Game Over’, with music by Lefdup and Lefdup, which performed 12 shows in London’s Brixton Academy. 1988 saw the first tented tour by Hebden Bridge based Snapdragon Circus. Co-founded by Jim Riley and John Whitehead in 1985, Snapdragon toured from 1988 to 1992, though Jim Riley left after the first tour and set up Skylight community circus centre in Rochdale. John Whitehead is an artist and sculptor who had a strong interest in visual theatre and was particularly inspired by Horse and Bamboo, a company set up in 1978 producing visual theatre in which story telling and music is central and that originally undertook horse-drawn touring. He loved the notion of a show arriving overnight, staying a week and leaving people with wonderful memories. Originally the show was going to be visual theatre using large sculptural works, but having introduced some juggling into the show and undertaken some sessions with Reg Bolton it became a marriage of visual theatre and circus, with John wire walking. The tented show ran for four seasons, directed by Gay Gaynor in 1988 (featuring aerialists Cathy Sprague and Becky Truman who went on to form Skinning the Cat) and 1989 (featuring Mark Morreau who also performed with Zippos Circus, NoFitState Circus, and the Generating Company), Luci Gorrell Barnes in 1990 and Richie Smith in 1991. The 1989 season included a successful tour to Holland and Belgium, and in 1990 there was a one-off collaboration with Jango Bates and his orchestra in London. In 1990 Snapdragon did a tented tour of over 60 performances. John Whitehead feels that throughout its life there was never enough money to realise the potential, that there was insufficient devising and rehearsal time and that their was insufficient training provision for performers in that era to have a high skill level. The company had hope of finance for a big company for 1992 and an American tour. When this didn’t materialise John says that he decided it was time to call it a day. 1988 – date Scarabeus Artistic Director – Daniela Essart Now in its 18th year, Scarabeus creates exhilarating, site specific, aerial performances that push boundaries and challenge preconceptions of space and linear narrative. Using physical and visual theatre, stilts and aerial skills, dance and acrobatics video and music, Scarabeus transforms its environments into an interactive stage where anything can happen. 1989 Skinning the Cat founded in Bradford, West Yorkshire, by Becky Truman and tours first outdoor aerial show ‘Snakes & Ladders’. before touring Chameleon from 91 – 94 with four aerialists and one technician. 1989 Skylight was founded by Jim Riley in Rochdale. The primary focus has been to develop circus as a tool for personal and social development and to create a path from taster sessions to employment, with finance from regeneration and social inclusion funds. 1989 The Circus Space was established in a derelict building lent by its developers in North Road, Islington (where the Pleasance Theatre is now) by Jonathan Graham with support from volunteers following an appeal for space in the 1988 London International Festival of New Circus programme. As a pilot project the space had rehearsal space, practice space, evening and youth classes, and put on shows – notably Satellite 1, 2 and 3 which included acrobats Jacky Sysum and Jeremy Robins. In 1994 The Circus Space moved to its current site in Hoxton, gradually bringing it back from dereliction. In 1995, in conjunction with East Berkshire College, The Circus Space started the first course within the conventional Further Education sector, a BTEC Diploma in Performing Arts (Circus). It was a founding member of FEDEC, the European Federation of Circus Schools, with France’s Centre National des Arts du Cirque and Belgium’s Ecole Superieure des Arts du Cirque. It was approached in 1998 by the New Millennium Experience Company to train the artists for the central show in the Millennium Dome and ensure that they had a qualification. For this The Circus Space developed a Certificate of Higher Education with Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD), and in 1999 started the first BA(Hons) degree course in Circus, again with CSSD in place of the BTEC course. In 2004 The Circus Space became an affiliate member of a new Higher Education Institution, the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, offering Foundation and BA(Hons) degrees in circus. Informal circus education for adults and youth has continued alongside the formal education courses. Throughout, The Circus Space has actively supported circus artists and companies, such as Gandini Juggling, Lindsey Butcher, Company f/z, the Generating Company and Matilda Leyser through commissioning and showcasing work as well as providing practice and rehearsal resources. It has also presented a large number of emerging circus artists within the format of The Circus Space Cabaret over the years and in 2005 started to move towards a greater production role. 1990 – From January 1990 to May 1991 Teo Greenstreet was part-time Circus Development Worker by Greater London Arts (GLA), the regional Arts Council body, under the management of Linda Dyos who had managed to include Circus in her job title in 1989 and was an advocate of the artform within GLA. Teo focussed on the development of The Circus Space, becoming its first Chief Executive, a position he held until he left in 2005 to take a Clore Fellowship for senior arts managers. 1990 No Ordinary Angels New Zealander Deborah Pope and Brazilian Rodrigo Matheus formed this aerial physical theatre duo in London and in 1997, in Brazil, created ‘Deadly’ which explores the Seven Deadly Sins in a relationship between a man and a woman, its battles, pleasures, frustrations and inevitable complicity. The show was awarded best Physical Theatre Show in the 1999’s Fringe Edinburgh Festival, Total Theatre Awards, Public’s Choice and featured in the 2000 London International Mime Festival before undertaking a small tour in the UK. 1990 Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil was formed in 1984, building on street entertainers Le Club des Talons Hauts, when founder Guy Laliberté persuaded the Quebecois government to support a travelling circus he planned with directors Guy Caron and Franco Dragone to undertake a three month 50 show tour of the province as part of the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s discovery of Canada. They were able to recruit from Montreal’s Ecole Nationale de Cirque which had started in 1980. In 1987 the company made their first visit to the USA, continuing each year thereafter. In 1990 a new show, La Nouvelle Expérience, was created and toured North America, while a second tented troupe made its first visit to Europe during the summer of 1990, including Jubilee Gardens on London’s South Bank, next to The National Theatre. The show was a reworking of previous versions of the original Soleil show, untitled at the time but subsequently known as Le Cirque Reinvente. The tour was not an out-and-out success and Soleil chose to focus on North American developments and was not to return to Europe for six years (see below). The cast of the show included Daniel Cyr, who subsequently co-founded Cirque Eloize in Montreal, and Nicky Dewhurst, who had performed in Circus Senso. Playbox 1992 – date Zippos Academy of Circus Arts was started by Martin Burton, the Director of Zippos Circus and the course was led by Jackie Williams. The first co-ordinator was Verena Cornwall who now chairs the Circus Arts Forum.At first, the Academy toured with Zippos, but it is now an entirely separate company and charity, the Academy of Circus Arts. It tours the country training and performing full-time for six months. 1992 – date Gandini Juggling Gandini Juggling has been one of the most consistently innovative juggling companies in the world, blending juggling with dance movement. The dance department of the Arts Council was most receptive to new circus in the early 1990s and those shows which integrated with dance, such as the Gandini’s and Momentary Fusion, stood a chance of receiving some project funding. Shows choreographed by Gill Clarke include “n’Either Either botH and” 1993, CAUGHT-”STIlL”/hanging 1994, And Other Curious Questions 1995, Septet 1997, Remembering Rastelli 1999. In 2000 the company performed 1000 shows with a team of 12 jugglers in the Millennium Dome. 2003 saw the premiere of Dont Break My Balls. In 2004 the company performed a double bill of Dont Break My Balls and Quartet in the London International Mime Festival and worked with John Blanchard on a new company K-DNK with a show called No-Exit. 1993 A national youth circus conference led to the foundation of the National Association of Youth Circus (NAYC) in 1994. This established a code of practice for those working in youth circus and a network with occasional meetings, but the sector was too weak and fragmented for the association to get established as a charity and make funding applications which could have enabled the sector to develop well beyond its current level. 1993 Jim Rose Sideshow appeared in London before its Edinburgh Fringe debut. This modern-day freakshow featured Enigma, who had his whole body tattooed like a jigsaw puzzle and Lifto, who lifted a cement block with his penis. 1993 – 2000 Momentary Fusion – Sophy Griffiths and Isabel Rocamora established this aerial dance-theatre company that toured theatre pieces, and undertook site-specific ventures and aerial choreographies for the camera. Its focus was on the artistic development of aerial choreographic techniques and the collaborative possibilities of light, music/sound and visual arts. Shows included Shifts 1994 and Stung 1996, 1997. 1994 Circomedia Bim Mason and Helen Crocker, former tutors at Fooltime, were able to set up Circomedia to build upon the foundations that Fooltime had provided prior to its collapse, in part of the Kingswood Foundation building that Fooltime had been seeking to move to. They now offer a one year diploma course with the option of a second year act creation course, a teacher training course, an outreach programme and a two year BTEC Further Education course for 16 – 18 year olds. In 2005 Circomedia added a second site, St Paul’s Church, which was refurbished by the Churches Conservation Trust as a circus training space and arts centre. 1994 Tantamount Esperance – Rose English, verbal and visual performance artist who combines text, imagery, design, movement and elements of circus presented this show featuring acrobats … at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1994 – 2002 Mamaloucos Inspired by the shows of Archaos, Matt Churchill and Julian Rudd formed Mamaloucos in 1994 and in 1996 toured a small tented show ‘Mama Loves Ya’which included Petra Massey (who went with members of theatre company Spymonkey to work in Soleil’s burlesque show ‘Zumanity’ in Las Vegas from to 2003-5) and the Stretch People duo of John Beresford and Martin Varallo. In 1998 with Arts Council / National Lottery funding Mamaloucos purchased a new big top. In 2000 they approached Kathryn Hunter, formerly of Theatre de Complicité, to make a piece of circus theatre and she proposed a show based around the Birds by Aristophanes. The National Theatre collaborated on the project, and the show was put on in the National’s Lyttelton Theatre as part of the 2002 Transformations season. However plans for the show to tour in a big top could not be implemented and the company effectively stopped at that point. 1995 Cirque Surreal Phillip Gandey, whose company produces The Chinese State Circus, Circus Starr, the Lady Boys of Bangkok and other shows in the UK and abroad (with a particularly strong presence in the middle east), introduced Cirque Surreal in 1995. With a set design similar in ways to those of Cirque du Soleil and music composed by Rick Wakeman, the show included clown Donimo, recent graduates (Les Mauvais Esprits) from France’s Centre National des Arts du Cirque, and a company of Cuban flying trapeze artists. It ran for 4 weeks in London’s Roundhouse. Cirque Surreal was revived in 2001 for a new show called Voyagers, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival. 1995 – date Greentop Community Circus Centre, Sheffield – A former chapel was acquired by Swamp Circus and transformed into a small circus training centre with the involvement of BBC’s ‘Challenge Anneka’ programme which attracted volunteers (particularly builders) to undertake works of social value . Greentop acts as a hub in its region providing a 12 week full-time Circus in Performance course and a range of evening and youth courses. 1995 – date Circus of Horrors The Circus of Horrors made its debut at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival. It was created after a chance meeting between Haze and Gerry Cottle. Haze had been performing a version of the show in clubs and Universities, but felt he had gone as far as he could go in its current format. However he felt there was a gap in the market for an alternative rock’n’roll circus after the demise of Archaos. They brought Pierrot Bidon, the director of Archaos in to direct the show in 1996 and subsequently the show ran for 17 weeks in the Autumn of 1997 and has been touring since. www.circusofhorrors.co.uk/htm/history.htm The mid-nineties onwards saw many of the companies which had benefited from the support of French and Canadian governments visit England. These included: 1995 Cirque Plume at Highbury Fields in London with ‘Toiles’ as part of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). 1996 French company Cirque Baroque performed ‘Candides’ at Salisbury Festival, returning in 1997 to Salisbury, Edinburgh, Manchester and London. In 1998 the company performed ‘Ningen’ at the Salisbury Festival. 1996 Cirque du Soleil undertook the first of their very successful January runs at the Royal Albert Hall, with Saltimbanco, which returned in 1997, followed by Alegria in 1998 and 1999. In December 2000 Cirque du Soleil pitched a big top next to Battersea Power Station and staged Quidam, returning for Christmas 2001 and also visiting Manchester. In January 2003 they returned to The Royal Albert Hall with Saltimbanco, then presented Dralion in 2004 and 2005, when Saltimbanco also toured to Manchester and Birmingham, followed by Alegria in 2006. The combination of very high design and production values, highly skilled performers in specially devised routines and choreographed ensemble work, and original music (plus great commercial acumen) has created a large new market and forced other companies to reconsider the quality and identity of their work. The success of Cirque du Soleil has also led to a large demand for similar style performance in the corporate entertainment sector, creating employment opportunities for many performers, and a market has developed for circus workshops as a team- building exercise. Around the millenium circus was represented on television through occasional broadcasts of Cirque du Soleil shows at Christmas, conveniently prior to their London runs in January at the Royal Albert Hall. 1996 Circus Arts Forum – In 1996, following on from a debate at the Cirque Plume shows in 1995, the Circus Space hosted an inaugural meeting of a Circus Forum where representatives from all sectors of the circus industry sat down together and talked about the future of circus. Subsequently hosted by Total Theatre, the UK’s lead body for physical and visual performance, the Forum holds conferences, has developed a website  www.circusarts.org.uk,  initiated a National Circus Day and has lobbied on issues such as the difficulty in obtaining public liability insurance. 1997/8 During a few years when there was absolutely no circus on television the only place acts were featured was the ‘alternative magic’ programme, The Secret Cabaret, hosted by Simon Drake. 1997 The London International Festival of Theatre brought the intimate French circus Cirque Ici and the Argentinian company De La Guarda to London. De La Guarda returned to the London’s Roundhouse in May 1999 and ran until April 2000 – the 11 month run being the longest ever at the Roundhouse. The show, which featured a lot of aerial harness work, happened above and on all four sides of the standing audience, and included dropping down into the audience and picking members up into the air. In terms of the thrill and risk one perceived as an audience member it was the successor to Archaos. 1997 Circus Symposium ‘The Development of Contemporary Circus Arts in the UK’ This symposium gave an opportunity for senior practitioners in circus to meet with speakers presenting papers on the contemporary circus context, the current operating environment and ways of producing work 1997 Policy Studies Institute published ‘Developing New Circus in the UK’ in Cultural Trends no.28 Officially dated 1995, this report was published in 1997. It was primarily concerned with the development of new circus in the UK. It looked at the characteristics of new circus and evidence of demand for new-circus performance; the approach of the arts funding sector to this emerging arts form and the potential for its future development; UK circus schools; and the results of Policy Studies Institute’s surveys of UK circus companies and circus performers. It’s conclusions included that: much of the activity appears to relatively small-scale and community-based and few UK new-circus performers work on a full-time basis; there are no large, flagship new-circus companies and only a very small number of companies touring shows in their own right. There was evidence of growing demand from overseas companies touring into the UK. These were funded in their own countries. In the UK, however, arts funders are unwilling to commit substantial resources to the development of new-circus performance. The bulk of the funding tends to be directed towards ‘community circus’ activities. The recent emergence of circus schools offering professional training courses was noted, and the fact that they receive comparatively little public funding for their training work. Their growth is an important development. In time it may help to break the vicious circle in which a lack of training holds back the development of high-quality UK-based new-circus perofmrance, which in turn restricts the arts funding suppport available for this increasingly popular artform. 1998 Conspiracy was a stylish show at The Circus Space presented by a young company featuring John Paul Zaccarini and Matt Costain, who went on to be leading characters in the Millennium Dome show, Stretch People, Luke Wilson, Ernesto Sarabia, Ben Richter, and Flick Ferdinando who then set up Company f/z with Zaccarini. 1998 Company fz John-Paul Zaccarini and Flick Ferdinando created Company fz with a first show, Throat created in 1998. This one-man show demonstrated John-Paul’s range of theatrical and physical skills including a breath-taking wet rope aerial routine. It was performed in the 2001 London International Mime Festival and won a Total Theatre award at Edinburgh festival 2002. Subsequent shows have included Philomena’s Feast, with a company of four, commissioned by The Circus Space, and Night and Day which grew out of a award from London Arts to study Obsessive Compulsive Disorders, which led to a performance commissioned by the Jerwood Foundation and The Circus Space, and Loser. 1998 to date – Eclipse at The Globe, Blackpool Pleasure Beach Described as a Circballet, Eclipse was produced and directed by Amanda Thompson with Antony Johns as choreographer and Vladimir Kekhaial as associate director and a principal character with his strap act. The show runs each year over the spring/summer. With lavish production values and a cast of skilled actors and dancers, largely from Russia, the show’s title could be assumed to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Cirque du Soleil. 1998 Animal Defenders International conducted an 18 month study on the use of animals in circuses, which was published in their report “The Ugliest Show on Earth” in 1998. In 1999, some of this evidence was used to obtain cruelty convictions against Mary Chipperfield, her husband Roger Cawley, and their elephant keeper, though they were not working with a circus at this time. News broadcasts and a Channel 4 documentary, shown in April1999, showed footage of a chimpanzee and an elephant being ill-treated and increased public concern about the use of animals, particularly wild animals, in circus. 1999 – ReFract’99 Conference Speakers from a range of UK circus companies, Cirque du Soleil and the Ecole Nationale de Cirque in Montreal considered circus training; the Millennium Show plans; how to create a healthy climate for circus; innovation and entertainment and the the relationship with other art forms. The conclusion was: Circus is not on a level playing field in comparison with other art forms. There is a need to establish and infrastructure where there are: – proper training opportunities at all levels; – access to professional advice, technical services, health and safety; – money for investment (particularly the investment in R&D); – advocacy for the sector. – 1999 Arts Council National Touring Funds For the first time funds were ring-fenced for circus, street arts and carnival, within the National Touring Programme. In 1999-2000 the allocation was £400,000 and several circus companies benefitted from grants of upto £100,000. 2000 Circelation was set up by Chenine Bhathena (who had previously worked with Ra-Ra Zoo, The Circus Space and the Big Apple Circus in New York) and Leila Jancovich. This is a professional development programme for circus performers and directors looking to develop and improve their skills and knowledge in the creation of new and innovative collaborative work. Circelation started with pilot projects in Sheffield in 2000, then in London, Bristol and Sheffield in 2001. In March/April 2004 Circelation began a three year Arts Council funded programme, based in Leeds. 2000 – date Giffords Circus was founded in 2000 by Nell Stroud and Toti Gifford. Nell had worked on the Chinese State Circus, America’s Circus Flora, Santus Circus and Germany’s Circus Roncalli. To date the show has predominantly toured in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Using a small tent (more a marquee than a big top) surrounded by traditional style mollycroft-topped showman’s wagons, and featuring horses, this is a show that presents a storybook image of village green circus. In 2002 the company was winner of the £10,000 Jerwood Circus Award in association with The Circus Space enabling them to develop ‘Living Dolls’, a piece combining traditional circus skills – aerial acrobatics (silks and trapeze), acrobatics on horse back, singing and presentation with the iconic circus imagery of children’s story books. 2000 Millennium Show in the Dome The Circus Space was invited in 1998 by Paul Cockle, Head of Show at the Millennium Dome, to make a proposal to recruit and provide accredited training for 100 aerial performers. The training ran through 1999 before rehearsals started in the autumn ready for OVO the Millennium Show to run throughout 2000. 160 performers and 60 technicians staged the show three times every day and the show was seen by 6.5 million people. Additionally a South Bank Show programme was broadcast on the making of the show. The show sketched a parable of man’s relationship with the earth – innocence, corruption and enlightenment – in three spectacular technical and acrobatic tableaux. OVO was conceived for the Dome by Mark Fisher (Creative Director) and Peter Gabriel (Music). Working with them were Micha Bergese (Artistic Director), Keith Khan (Costume and 3D Props) and Patrick Woodroffe (Lighting Designer). 2001-date The Generating Company Paul Cockle, Head of Show at the Millennium Dome, and The Circus Space were concerned to ensure a legacy for the performers following 2000 and so they initiated an independent not-for-profit company, The Generating Company. The first show ‘Storm’ ran at The Circus Space from 17 April to 12 May 2001, and was followed by ‘Gangstars’ in 2002, which then went on a national tour. At the end of 2002, Storm was reworked with commercial funding for the Barbican where it ran from 18 Dec 2002 – 4 Jan 2003. The third show, Lactic Acid, was presented at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, in September 2005. The Generating Company has also produced and run shows for others, from the club Manumission in Ibiza to Butlins in the UK. 2001 Street Arts and Circus: a snapshot – Size, activities and relationship with the funding system – Helen Jermyn, 2001 2001 Canada’s Cirque Eloize performed at Sadler’s Wells, Barbican and was the opening production of the new, prestigious Welsh Millennium Centre in Cardiff. 2002 French flying trapeze company Les Arts Sauts brought their show ‘Kayassine’ in its stylish big bubble top to Victoria Park, Hackney, London as part of the Barbican’s BITE season. 2002 The London International Festival of Theatre presented the Australian company Acrobat at the Roundhouse from 23 October – 3 November. 2002 Arts Council of England Strategy and Report on Circus written by Felicity Hall. This marked a shift in the Arts Council position on circus, with the introductory statement being “The Arts Council of England values the artform of circus and its importance within the wider theatre ecology.” “Key Issues: It was clear from the response to the consultations and the survey conducted in 2001 that the Arts Council and Regional Arts Boards need to address the following key issues: – The current perceived inaccessibility of the funding system to practitioners. – The lack of consistency at regional and national level to recognising the value of the artform. – The lack of consistent expertise within the funding system capable of evaluating and developing the artform. – The low level of investment in circus, regionally and nationally. – The need for advocacy for circus. Key Recommendations: – A consistent commitment to circus as an artform at both policy and funding level within the funding system. – The provision of appropriate level of genuine expertise at officer and assessor/advisor level within the funding system. Further, in the short term, it is recommended that there is a part time post for circus officer in the drama department at the Arts Council, in order to drive forward the recommendations outlined in this report. – Ensuring that new simplified funding schemes address the difficulties experienced by many practitioners in applying for funding. – A commitment made to developing an advocacy strategy for circus in partnership with the sector and other partners. – Increased investment in circus and prioritising of spending in the following areas: artistic development, infrastructure, advocacy and profile, and distribution. 2002 – date Spirit of the Horse, is a large scale show, created by the Gandeys and Fossetts circus families, mainly touring showgrounds and racecourses (which have an interested audience and seem to be less targeted by activists against performing animals), presenting a range of breeds and skills. 2003 Circus Arts Forum publishes “Circus in the United Kingdom in the 21st Century” a searching new look at issues and key strategic needs of circus. National Circus Development Project – pilot programme initiated by ACE in response to the ACE Strategy and Report on Circus Arts supporting The Wrong Size, Danny Schlesinger, Matilda Leyser, The Flying Dudes, Zippos Circus, Swamp Circus, FLYby 2004 – date La Clique is a risque German variety show directed by Markus Pabst for the famous Spiegeltent which has been a sell-out success at the Brighton and Edinburgh Festivals, featuring top acts in the intimate wood and mirrored setting of the Spiegeltent. The arrival of La Clique coincided with the coming of age of a new Burlesque scene in the UK. 2004 Bassline Circus started – a new skool company in a bit top. 2005 The Licensing Act 2003 came into effect with licences required for touring circuses, which had not previously needed these outside London, though they had needed to comply with Health and Safety inspection requirements. Several circus proprietors have concerns that the cost and bureaucracy involved will reduce the number of circuses touring. 2005 Pericles directed by Kathryn Hunter at Shakespeare’s Globe Matilda Leyser, Mimbre, Heir of Insanity, No Ordinary AngelsFoolhardy Folk; Expressive Feat Productions; Kent Circus School; · Mimbre, Albert and Friends, and Company F.Z. will each receive £20,000 for the financial year 2006/2007 · Mimbre, Albert and Friends, Company F.Z, and Nutkhut will each receive £25,000 for the financial year 2007/2008 REFERENCES Engineers of the Imagination The Welfare State Handbook edited by Tony Coult and Baz Kershaw isbn 0-413-52800-6 Communication While the Circus Friends’ Association magazine King Pole and the weekly Worlds Fair have been published throughout this time they have not been a major source of information for those involved in contemporary circus. 1984 – date: Kaskade – the European Juggling Magazine was founded by Gabi and Paul Keast in Germany but published in German and English, with originally a French version too and was a primary source of information before the internet developed. 1990 – date Those looking for information about juggling benefited from the start of the newsgroup rec.juggling. In 1994 the internet Juggling Information Service started ( www.juggling.org),  followed in 2001 by the International Juggling Database  www.jugglingdb.com).  More recently newsgroups for the National Association of Youth Circus and for Trapeze were set up. 1992-?? The Catch Magazine, an English magazine for juggling, street theatre and new circus, which had a broader remit and was less earnest (more English tabloid) than the European juggling magazine Kaskade. Total Theatre None of these compare to the glossy, erudite French publication ‘Arts de la Piste’. The best magazine in the English speaking world is ‘Spectacle, published by Ernest Albrecht, author of the excellent book “The New American Circus”. Circus Equipment Basic circus equipment such as juggling clubs, stilts and unicycles had been very difficult to obtain in the UK. The original cast of Barnum featured acrobat Terry Williams who was involved in training the cast too and set up Clown Alley in the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, selling equipment and holding circus workshops around 1984. Also around this time Nicky B started selling juggling equipment in the South West initially under his own name and then Butterfingers, a company which still trades today, as does the Oddballs Juggling Shop, set up originally in Max and Susie Oddball’s home, before relocating to a shop just off Upper Street, in Islington, London. Several other companies have come and gone. The major British manufacturer of circus equipment is Beard Juggling based in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, which was set up in the early 1990s. In 1993 More Balls Than Most juggling retailers set up and rode the crest of the juggling wave in the mid 90s with their boxed sets of juggling balls on sale everywhere from mail order catalogues to Harrods. Several people make small batches of trapezes and similar equipment to order but Unicycle in France is the major manufacturer.

• » Top 5 Circuses in the UK

Top 5 Circuses in the UK

18 April 2023

Roll up, roll up... for the last few centuries the circus has been one of the most popular and unique places for entertainment. Still as popular today as it was 200 years ago, the circus never fails to thrill and excite. Circuses have evolved over the last century, with the two principal forms today being the classic (think of ringmasters, trapeze artists, clowns and big tops) and the contemporary (think of stories and themes conveyed using circus skills blended with performance art). For this list, we’ve stuck to traditional circuses the whole family will enjoy.

Zippos Circus

One of the most well-known and popular circuses operating today, Zippos is as traditional as it comes. The excitement starts the moment you see the huge, red and white big top and it doesn’t stop. This circus doesn’t feature animals, instead choosing to showcase the amazing abilities of people who will dazzle you with contortion, teeterboards, trampolines, tumbling, clowning, high wire, trapeze, juggling and more. This circus prides itself on catering for families and is the only UK circus to hold the Family Arts Standard Mark. 

The Blackpool Tower Circus

Positioned at the base of the famous tower, this amazing circus puts on three, one-hour shows each day (two on Sundays). It’s been going non-stop since 1894, and features every traditional circus act you can think of. What marks this circus out as truly special, though, is the clown show. Many clowns who have achieved international fame in the world of clowning have either had stints or started their careers at this circus. The whole family will enjoy what this circus offers and don’t miss the legendary water finale that has capped off every show for the last 40 years.

Planet Circus

Touring the North East and the Midlands, this circus boasts a unique array of acts. One of the main draws is the incredible motorbike stunt teams - the Peter Pavlov Team and OMG FMX Team - who will have you on the edge of your seat as they do things with their bikes that you wouldn’t think possible. There are also many acrobatic acts, from aerial straps and silk, to trapeze and tightropes, as well as Andreea - one of the funniest clowns in any UK circus.

Gifford’s Circus 

Gifford’s Circus tours around the south and southwest of England. It’s one of the few animal circuses in the country, featuring horses, dogs and birds. The animals are well cared for and loved by their keepers, with all animals regularly inspected by Stroud District Council Animal Welfare Officers. One of the most wonderful things about this circus is that it’s constantly accompanied by its own travelling licensed restaurant - The Circus Sauce Restaurant - which opens for dinner every evening. 

Russel’s International Circus

Touring down the east coast of England, this delightful circus not only runs its circus show but also hosts workshops, sessions for schools, and circus holidays, in which you can rent a charming caravan on the circus site itself. The show itself has been voted Britain’s best circus show for five years running and you can expect to find every well-known circus act on the bill.

Photo by Laura Louise Grimsley on Unsplash

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8 Legendary Circus Performers

By: Evan Andrews

Updated: May 23, 2023 | Original: January 11, 2016

1. Isaac Van Amburgh—“The Great Lion Tamer”

From his humble origins as an assistant at a menagerie called the Zoological Institute of New York, the flamboyant Isaac Van Amburgh grew into the most famous lion tamer of the 19th century. His act was renowned for its extreme daring. After entering the cage clad in ancient Roman garb, Van Amburgh would taunt his collection of lions, tigers and leopards and force them to stand on his shoulders and let him ride on their backs. He would also act out scenes from the Bible by introducing a lamb and a young child into the mix and having them sit alongside his big cats as though they were its own cubs. For his big finish, the great tamer would soak his arm or his head in blood and fearlessly thrust it between a lion’s gaping jaws. Most of Van Amburgh’s tricks were achieved through sheer brutality—he subdued his animals by beating them with whips and crowbars—but they won him widespread acclaim in the United States and Europe. His most famous admirer was the British Queen Victoria, who attended his London show seven times in 1839 and later commissioned a painting of him reclining with his cats.

2. Dan Rice—“The King of American Clowns”

Dan Rice’s name isn’t well known today, but in the mid-19th century, he was a world-famous performer who counted the likes of Mark Twain and President Zachary Taylor as acquaintances and admirers. The New York native first stepped into the spotlight in the 1840s with a clowning act that mixed physical comedy and trick riding with homespun witticisms and musical numbers. Audiences ate it up, and he was soon raking in $1,000 a week as the star and owner of his own traveling circus. Part of Rice’s appeal lay in his ability to mix topical humor and political satire with feats of strength and other traditional circus stunts. He was one of Abraham Lincoln’s most outspoken critics during the Civil War, and he later launched a short-lived bid for the presidency in 1868. Rice’s popularity waned in the years before he finally hung up his clown shoes in the 1890s, but he’s since been hailed as one of the fathers of the modern circus.

3. Annie Oakley—“The Peerless Lady Wing-Shot”

Phoebe Anne Moses first honed her rifle skills while hunting wild game during her childhood in Ohio. After marrying vaudeville performer Frank Butler in the 1870s, she took the name “Annie Oakley” and toured with circuses as a professional sharpshooter. By the 1880s, the young deadeye had joined the frontier extravaganza “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” and become its highest-paid performer. Her arsenal of tricks included hitting the edge of a playing card from 30 paces, snuffing out a candle with a bullet, blasting targets while riding a bike and even shooting a lit cigarette from her husband’s lips. Crowds were entranced by Oakley’s superhuman marksmanship and folksy personality, and she eventually spent some three decades touring the world with the Wild West and other shows. Before retiring in 1913, she performed for the likes of Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Thomas Edison, who once filmed one of her shooting exhibitions with a newly invented kinetoscope camera.

4. Jules Leotard—“The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze”

French-born acrobat Jules Leotard is remembered as the first man in history to attempt a flying trapeze act. The son of a gymnasium owner, he first practiced the high-flying stunt over his family’s swimming pool before unveiling it in 1859 at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris. He later took his act to London, where he captivated audiences by somersaulting between five different trapezes with only a pile of old mattresses to break his fall. Leotard’s death-defying deeds made him something of a sensation during the 1860s, but his career was tragically cut short after he died of disease at the age of 28. By then, the intrepid aerialist had already been immortalized in the popular song “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” He also became the namesake for the “leotard,” the snug, one-piece garment that he had designed to show off his physique during performances.

5. Zazel—“The Human Projectile”

In 1877, the world’s first recorded human cannonball took flight when teenaged acrobat Rosa Richter—better known by her stage name “Zazel”—was shot into the air at the Royal Aquarium in London. The “cannon” that sent her airborne was invented by tightrope walker William Leonard Hunt and consisted of coiled springs attached to a foot platform. When the springs propelled Zazel out of the barrel and into a waiting safety net, a worker would set off a gunpowder charge to recreate the look and sound of a cannon shot. Word of Zazel’s death-defying stunt quickly spread, and it wasn’t long before crowds of up to 15,000 people were gathering to watch her soar over their heads. The young daredevil later toured with P.T. Barnum’s circus in the United States, but her luck finally ran out in 1891, when she overshot the net during a performance in New Mexico. While Zazel survived, a broken back forced her to retire from the circus for good.

6. Charles Blondin—“The Great Blondin”

French daredevil Charles Blondin made his first circus appearance as a young boy, when he performed somersaults and wire dancing under the name “The Little Wonder.” He was a skilled acrobat and athlete—he once leapt over two lines of soldiers holding fixed bayonets—but he was most famous for his heart-pounding exploits as a tightrope walker. In June 1859, a 35-year-old Blondin made history when he strung a 1,300-foot hemp rope between the American and Canadian sides of Niagara Falls and strolled across the chasm, pausing along the way to enjoy a few swigs from a bottle of wine. He later repeated the stunt on multiple occasions, each time with a new and seemingly suicidal twist. He conquered the falls on stilts, with a sack over his head, wearing chains, pushing a wheelbarrow and even while carrying his terrified manager on his back. Most famous of all was the time he crossed with a cooking stove and stopped halfway to prepare an omelet—all while balancing on a 2-inch-wide rope suspended some 160 feet above the water. “The Great Blondin” would later make a fortune displaying his high-wire heroics across the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. He became world-famous, so much so that several imposters and imitators used his name to get publicity for their own tightrope stunts.

7. May Wirth—“The World’s Greatest Bareback Rider”

Trick riding and equestrian stunts were a fixture under the big top from its early days in the 18th century, but few riders ever became as famous as Australia native May Wirth. Born into a circus family in 1894, she got her start as a child wirewalker and contortionist before hopping on horseback at age 10. She later joined Barnum and Bailey’s circus in America, where she dazzled audiences with an act that combined acrobatics with expert bareback riding. Wirth could perform a forward flip on horseback from a kneeling position—the first woman to do so—and perfected a trick where she did somersaults from one moving horse to another. The dainty, 4-foot-11-inch rider also showed off her physical strength by leaping from the ground onto the back of a galloping stallion, sometimes while blindfolded and wearing heavy baskets on her feet. Wirth’s good looks and daring stunts won her legions of admirers and frequent mentions in the gossip pages of newspapers. By the time she finally retired in 1937, she had spent 25 years as one of the circus’s top female performers.

8. Lillian Leitzel—“The Queen of Aerial Gymnasts”

During the golden age of the circus in the early 20th century, no star shone brighter than that of German-born aerialist Lillian Leitzel. She captivated audiences with an act that consisted of acrobatic tricks and poses performed while hanging from Roman rings suspended 50 feet above the ground—always without a safety net below. For her grand finale, she would grasp the ring with one hand and flip head over heels so rapidly that her arm would dislocate and then snap back into place with each turn. The spellbinding routine made Leitzel into an international diva. She was voted “the most beautiful and attractive woman in all the world” by American soldiers during World War I, and she became the first Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey star to receive a private train car while on tour. Leitzel continued her physically demanding act well into her 30s, but her career ended in tragedy in 1931, when a piece of metal on her rigging snapped during a performance in Copenhagen and sent her plummeting to the floor. She died from her injuries just two days later.

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SHORT HISTORY OF THE CIRCUS

From circopedia.

By Dominique Jando

If the history of theater, ballet, opera, vaudeville, movies, and television is generally well documented, serious studies of circus history are sparse, and known only to a few circus enthusiasts and scholars. What little the public at large knows, on the other hand, is circus history as told over the years by imaginative circus press agents, and repeated—and often misunderstood and distorted—by writers of popular fiction, Hollywood screenwriters, and journalists too busy to investigate further. One of the most popular misapprehensions about circus history is the oft-repeated idea that circus dates back to the Roman antiquity. But the Roman circus was in actuality the precursor of the modern racetrack; the only common denominator between Roman and modern circuses is the word itself, circus , which means in Latin as in English, "circle".

• 1 Philip Astley: The Father Of The Modern Circus
• 2 The Circus Is Born
• 3 The American Traveling Circus
• 4 Circus Conquers the World
• 5 Evolution of the Circus Performance
• 6 The End of the Equestrian Circus
• 7 Changes at the End of the 2oth Century
• 8 Circus in the 21st Century
• 9 Suggested Reading
• 10 Image Gallery

Philip Astley: The Father Of The Modern Circus

In 1768, Astley settled in London and opened a riding-school near Westminster Bridge, where he taught in the morning and performed his "feats of horsemanship" in the afternoon. In London at this time, modern commercial theater (a word that encompassed all sorts of performing arts) was in the process of developing. Astley's building featured a circular arena that he called the circle , or circus , and which would later be known as the ring.

The circus ring, however, was not Astley's invention; it was devised earlier by other performing trick Any specific exercise in a circus act. -riders. In addition to allowing audiences to keep sight of the riders during their performances (something that was next to impossible if the riders were forced to gallop in a straight line), riding in circles in a ring also made it possible, through the generation of centrifugal force, for riders to keep their balance while standing on the back of galloping horses. Astley's original ring was about sixty-two feet in diameter. Its size was eventually settled at a diameter of forty-two feet, which has since become the international standard for all circus rings.

The Circus Is Born

Astley opened Paris's first circus, the Amphithéâtre Anglois , in 1782. That same year, his first competitor arose: equestrian Charles Hughes (1747-97), a former member of Astley's company. In association with Charles Dibdin, a prolific songwriter and author of pantomimes, Hughes opened a rival amphitheater and riding-school in London, the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy. The first element of this rather grandiose title was to be adopted as a generic name for the new form of entertainment, the circus . In 1793, Hughes went to perform to the court of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg, Russia; that same year, one of his pupils, British equestrian John Bill Ricketts (1769-1802), opened the first circus in the United States, in Philadelphia. In 1797, Ricketts also established the first Canadian circus, in Montréal. His only competition in America, the British equestrian Philip Lailson (who came to the U.S. in 1795), brought the circus to Mexico in 1802.

Circus performances were originally given in circus buildings. Although at first these were often temporary wooden structures, every major European city soon boasted at least one permanent circus, whose architecture could compete with the most flamboyant theaters. Similar buildings were also erected in the New World's largest cities: New York, Philadelphia, Montréal, Mexico City, et al. Although buildings would remain the choice setting for circus performances in Europe well into the twentieth century, the circus was to adopt a different format in the United States.

The American Traveling Circus

In the early nineteenth century, the United States was a new, developing country with few cities large enough to sustain long-term resident circuses. Furthermore, settlers were steadily pushing the American frontier westward, establishing new communities in a process of inexorable expansion. To reach their public, showmen had little choice but to travel light and fast.

With that, the unique character of the American circus emerged: It was a traveling tent-show coupled with a menagerie and run by businessmen, a very different model from that of European circuses, which for the most part remained under the control of performing families.

In 1871, former museum promoter and impresario Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891), in association with circus entrepreneur William Cameron Coup (1837-95), launched the P.T. Barnum's Museum, Menagerie & Circus, a traveling show whose "museum" part was an exhibition of animal and human oddities soon to become an integral part of the American circus, the Sideshow.

In 1872, Coup devised a system of daily transportation by rail for their circus. Another of Coup's innovations of that year was the addition of a second ring. The circus had become by far the most popular form of entertainment in America, and Barnum and Coup's enterprise was America's leading circus. Ever the businessman, Coup resolved to increase the capacity of their tent. Due to structural limitations, this could only be done effectively by increasing the tent's length, which resulted in hampering the view for large sections of the audience. The addition of a second ring, then a third (1881) and, later, up to seven rings and stages solved the problem physically, if not artistically. It could be argued that it changed the focus of the show to emphasize spectacle over artistry. For better or worse, multiple rings and stages became another unique feature of the American circus.

Circus Conquers the World

In 1836, the British equestrian Thomas Cooke visited the United States and brought back to England the American traveling-circus tent. This innovation was to ease the task of a group of European circus pioneers consumed by global ambitions. The most remarkable of these early touring companies was managed by the Italian equestrian Giuseppe Chiarini (1823-1897). In 1853, Chiarini left Europe for America, where he created his own circus and went to the unchartered territory (as far as circus was concerned) of Havana, then went to South America, crossed the Pacific, and landed in Japan in 1855. In 1864, he settled in Mexico and toured Chile and Argentina before returning to Europe in 1869. In 1874, he went to China and then sailed to Brazil. In 1878, the company embarked on a tour of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Singapore, Java, Siam, India, and South America. And so it went, until the death of the intrepid Italian in Guatemala in 1897.

The French equestrian Louis Soullier (1813-1888), who managed Vienna's Circus at the Prater, toured the Balkans, settled for a time in Turkey, and then continued to China, where he introduced the circus in 1854. When he returned to Europe in 1866, he brought with him Chinese acrobats who in turn introduced traditional Chinese acts such as perch-pole Long perch held vertically on a performer's shoulder or forehead, on the top of which an acrobat executes various balancing figures. balancing, diabolo-juggling, plate-spinning, hoop-diving, et al., to Western audiences.

Another French equestrian, Jacques Tourniaire (1772-1829), went to Russia in 1816, where he established the first Russian circus. After his death, his sons Benoit and François followed in his footsteps, touring extensively in Siberia and traveling to India, China, and America.

European circus companies had ventured so far from home because they hoped to increase their profits. Their success in doing so was not lost on the handful of American circus entrepreneurs who would follow their lead.

Before entering into a partnership with P.T. Barnum in 1881, James Anthony Bailey (1847-1906) had embarked his Cooper & Bailey Circus on a trip to Honolulu, the Fiji Islands, Tasmania, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, New Zealand, and South America, a journey that lasted from 1876-78. After Barnum's death, Bailey took their Barnum & Bailey "Greatest Show on Earth" on an extensive European tour, from 1897 to 1902, which introduced bewildered Europeans to P.T. Barnum's gargantuan vision of the circus as a touring show that traveled nightly by special trains and, every day, set up and tore down immense canvas tents that housed an amalgam of triplicate circus, zoological exhibition, and freak-show.

If the three-ring format and the sideshow met with only middling enthusiasm, European circus owners were nonetheless impressed by Barnum & Bailey's touring techniques, and menagerie owners, whose business was fading at the time, were quick to recognize the advantages of adding a traveling circus to their zoological exhibitions. Thus, the tented circus and menagerie developed in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century.

When Bailey returned to the U.S. in 1902, he found his old market under the control of serious competition: the giant circus conglomerate created by the Ringling Brothers , Al (1832-1916), Otto (1837-1911), Alf T. (1863-1919), Charles (1864-1926), and John (1866-1936). One year after Bailey's death in 1906, the Ringlings acquired Barnum & Bailey, which they combined with their own circus in 1919 under the title Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows.

In Europe, the traveling circus and menagerie reached its peak between the two World Wars, especially in Germany, where the flamboyant traveling enterprises of Krone , Sarrasani and Hagenbeck dominated the market. In large cities, however, circus performances were still given in circus buildings; Sarrasani had its own building in Dresden, Krone in Münich, Hagenbeck in Stellingen, and Paris alone maintained four permanent circuses. This, of course, created a demanding audience (in large cities, at least) who had grown accustomed to a degree of comfort and a fairly high level of production values in their elegant circus buildings. While in the U.S. the tenting techniques developed by W.C. Coup would remain practically unchanged for over a century, German and Italian tent-makers—and later French—constantly developed new systems for circus tents and seating, which eventually made some European traveling circuses nearly as comfortable and production-efficient as any permanent building.

Evolution of the Circus Performance

From its inception, the core of the circus performance had been equestrian acts ( trick Any specific exercise in a circus act. -riding, bareback acrobatics, dressage or High School , presentation of horses "at liberty "Liberty act", "Horses at liberty": Unmounted horses presented from the center of the ring by an equestrian directing his charges with his voice, body movements, and signals from a ''chambrière'' (French), or long whip. ," and even comedy on horseback) interspersed with acrobatic, balancing, and juggling acts. Dibdin and Hughes had added to that original fare the pantomime A circus play, not necessarily mute, with a dramatic story-line (a regular feature in 18th and 19th century circus performances). , a dramatic presentation which traditionally ended the performance and involved a good amount of tumbling, clowning (not necessarily mute), and equestrian displays. Pantomimes often reenacted famous battles which, true to Astley's spirit, gave equestrian performers a good opportunity to demonstrate "the different cuts and guards as in real action" or "a general engagement, sword in hand, with the different postures of offence, for the safety of man and horse..." [From an old Astley's handbill] Pantomimes remained extremely successful during the nineteenth century and survived under various forms well into the twentieth. The last notable circus pantomime A circus play, not necessarily mute, with a dramatic story-line (a regular feature in 18th and 19th century circus performances). was a spectacular adaptation of Lewis Wallace's Ben Hur which the French circus Gruss performed for several years in the 1960s.

Although in the middle of the nineteenth century equestrians, male and female, were still the true stars of the circus, acrobats began getting more and more attention. Not surprisingly, it started with acrobats on horseback, especially Americans such as John H. Glenroy , who accomplished the first somersault on horseback in 1846. "Floor" acrobats were also quick to make their mark. The best of them were often clowns. At first, circus clowns were essentially skilled parodists who might talk, sing, ride a horse, juggle, present trained animals, do balancing acts, or tumble. In the first half of the nineteenth century, an English clown Generic term for all clowns and augustes. '''Specific:''' In Europe, the elegant, whiteface character who plays the role of the straight man to the Auguste in a clown team. , Little Wheal , became famous for regularly performing a hundred consecutive somersaults in tempo—quite a feat, then or now.

By the close of the nineteenth century, railways and automobiles had begun to replace horses. Although major European circuses were still operated by equestrian families, equestrian displays were losing their supremacy to trainers of exotic animals (especially big cats), acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, and clowns. While some trained exotic animals had appeared early in circus history—around 1812 at Paris's Cirque Olympique , the Franconis presented Kioumi, the first trained elephant—it was the European combination of circus and menagerie that triggered the vogue of wild-animal presentations, which were developed in large part in Germany by the Hagenbecks, the world's foremost importers and dealers of exotic animals. Another significant transformation factor was a renewed interest in gymnastics and physical activities (which led to the resurrection of the Olympic Games in 1896) at a time when few gymnasts could be seen outside the circus.

The End of the Equestrian Circus

The most consequential early-twentieth-century innovation in the circus, however, occurred in Russia. In 1919, Lenin nationalized the Russian circuses, and the vast majority of their performers, natives of Western Europe, fled the country. Faced with the task of training a core of uniquely Russian performers, the Soviet government established, in 1927, the State College for Circus and Variety Arts , better known as the Moscow Circus School. Not only did the school rejuvenate the Russian circus, it also developed training methods modeled after sport-gymnastics, created original presentations with the help of directors and choreographers, and even originated innovative techniques and apparatuses that led to the invention of entirely new kinds of acts.

When, in the late 1950s, the Moscow Circus (a generic name adopted by all Soviet circus companies touring abroad) started showing in the West, those trained by the Soviet school contrasted favorably with those trained by the traditional circus families. Russian performers displayed originality, unparalleled artistry, and amazing technique, whereas the rest just repeated themselves in a desperate attempt to compete with both the Russian innovations and increasing competition from movies, radio, and television, which they did using the only weapons at their disposal: time-tested traditional acts. But resistance to change had transformed tradition into routine. The old circus families were losing touch with their audience's ever-transforming world.

Changes at the End of the 2oth Century

There was obviously a strong planetary need for a circus renaissance: That same year (1974), in Adelaide, Australia, a young company of clowns, acrobats and aerialists that called itself "New Circus" began to perform and attract attention. It was followed a year later by the Soapbox Circus; both companies merged in 1977, to become Circus Oz . Meanwhile, in 1975, Larry Pizoni and Peggy Snyder launched the grassroots Pickle Family Circus in San Francisco, then the epicenter of the American counterculture movement.

Perhaps not coincidentally, all these changes came at a time when European intellectuals—mostly French—were fretting over the decline of the circus as a performing art. In 1975, Prince Rainier of Monaco (a longtime circus enthusiast) created the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo , whose Gold and Silver Clown awards would become to the circus world what the Oscar® is to the movie industry. It was followed in 1977 by Paris's Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain (World Festival of the Circus of Tomorrow), created to showcase and promote a new generation of circus performers, mostly trained in circus schools.

In this atmosphere, the Gruss/Fratellini model quickly stimulated other experiments. In 1977, Paul Binder and Michael Christensen , who had performed as jugglers with Fratellini, created the New York School for Circus Arts and its performing branch, the Big Apple Circus , which reintroduced the classical one-ring circus to America. The same year, Bernhard Paul and André Heller created Circus Roncalli in Germany, restoring the lost flamboyance of the German circus of yore.

In 1985, the French government created the Centre National des Arts du Cirque, a professional circus college on the Russian model. Other schools, often private not-for-profit entities and with varying degrees of professionalism, were established in England, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Brazil, and the U.S., among others, adding their numbers to the circus schools already in existence in the former Eastern Bloc.

Although China has a 2000-year-old acrobatic theater tradition of its own, its many troupes—similarly to their Russisan counterparts—developed new training method]]s after the Communist revolution and found themselves welcome participants in the circus renaissance. Director Valentin Gneushev (certainly the most influential director in the contemporary circus) opened his own studio in post-communist Moscow, while others opened specialized schools, like André Simard's aerial-act studio, Les Gens d'R, in Canada.

Circus in the 21st Century

The surge of teaching activity led to the creation of a multitude of avant-garde and experimental circus companies in the last decades of the 20th century, especially in England, France, Germany, Australia, and Canada (some of them extremely successful, such as the French "heavy metal" circus Archaos , or the German Circus Flic-Flac ), as well as to a revival of the old variety theater, especially in Germany with the resurgence of German " varieté (German, from the French: ''variété'') A German variety show whose acts are mostly circus acts, performed in a cabaret atmosphere. Very popular in Germany before WWII, Varieté shows have experienced a renaissance since the 1980s. ".

Traditional circuses, however had to face a change of audience's perception regarding animal training, fueled in large part by animal-rights activists—in spite of massive positive changes in the presentation and keeping of wild animals, especially in Europe. This led to a swarm of local legislation that made it often difficult, and oftentimes even impossible for circuses to present wild animal acts. Many circuses had to adapt and gradually give up the presentation of animals, following in that the example of the very successful Cirque du Soleil.

However, in many countries, this had a devastating effect on the circus industry: large traveling circuses that relied in large part on their vast menageries and the presentation of their exotic and wild animals, where forced to dispose of them and eventually closed, thus putting animal trainers ans keepers out of work, and at the same time considerably reducing the employment opportunities for other artists. However, animal acts are still presented by many circuses, notably in Eastern Europe and in Russia, and wherever else they are offered, they largely remain audiences' favorites.

Nonetheless, the circus, which has always been a highly adaptable performing art, is today undergoing important cosmetic changes, but its appeal as an universal form of entertainment remains, and a new expansion is to be expected.

Image Gallery

Philip Astley

The fisrst circus: Astley's Riding School (1777)

Hughes's Royal Circus (1782)

John Bill Ricketts (c.1795)

Laurent Franconi (1800)

Astley's Amphitheatre (1807)

Antonio Franconi (c.1830)

Palmyre Annato (1840)

Circus Chiarini in Japan (1886)

Gaetano Ciniselli

Bertram W. Mills (1923)

Ringling Bros. program cover (1940)

Moscow Circus School (1974)

Student show at the Moscow Circus School (1974)

Paul Binder & Michael Christensen (1982)

Valentin Gneushev (c.1995)

Cirque d'Hiver, Paris (2011)

The Big Apple Circus in New York (2010)

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250 years of circus history rolls into Sheffield 1

by Richard Moss, 12-07-18 Post

Photograph of Lulu Adams, 1940s by permission of The University of Sheffield Library, National Fairground and Circus Archive

Weston Park Museum in Sheffield welcomes Circus! Show of Shows, celebrating 250 years of an enduring art form

In 1768 in London Phillip Astley unveiled a show, which for the very first time, combined equestrianism, clowning, rope walking and acrobatics within a now iconic circular ring. This ground-breaking performance marked the birth of a global phenomenon that we now know as the circus.

Astley didn’t coin the phrase ‘circus’ – one of his keen competitors did that – but he was the first to combine comedy with equestrian and acrobatic expertise. And as well as figuring out that the ideal size for a circus ring is 42 feet, he was also the first to build a roof over the entire arena so that his audiences could enjoy his evening amusements in all weathers – a formula that developed into the big top circuses that thrive today.

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Two hundred and fifty years later, circus may have evolved – most recently in response to the growing concerns for animal welfare – but the form continues to amaze and astound, showcasing the talents of legions of impossibly skilled performers across the world.

Museums Sheffield’s exhibition exploring this global phenomenon is part of Circus 250 , a UK-wide celebration marking the 250th anniversary of this enduring art form, and it is filled with a suitably dazzling array of costumes, props, rare historic posters, artworks, films and archive photographs.

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas. Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando. © The National Gallery, London. Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1925.

Bostock and Wombwell’s world renowned menagerie, 1880s by permission of The University of Sheffield Library National Fairground and Circus Archive.

As well as loans from major collections across the world, many of the objects and ephemera have been drawn from the University of Sheffield Library’s National Fairground and Circus Archive, which covers every aspect of the travelling fair, circus and related entertainments from fairgrounds and circuses to sideshows, magic and amusement parks.

The exhibition also offers the chance to see one of the most beautiful and famous circus paintings in the world.

Edgar Degas’ Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, on loan from The National Gallery, is a breath-taking depiction of the acclaimed turn of the century aerialist, suspended over 200 feet in the air from the rafters of the circus dome by a rope clenched between her teeth.

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One of the most revered circus performers of her time, Miss La La appeared before rapturous crowds in both London and Paris during the late 1800s and it was in Paris, at the Cirque Fernando in Montmartre, where she was painted by Degas.

For Circus! Show of Shows, the painting is accompanied by a film of a spectacular new performance created by contemporary circus performer and aerialist, Blaze Tarsha, in response to the Degas work.

Koringa, Bertram Mills circus programme 1939 Copyright University of Sheffield Library, National Fairground and Circus Archive

Photograph of Koringa, 1940s by permission of University of Sheffield Library, National Fairground and Circus Archive

The hidden histories of women in circus and black circus artists, and Sheffield’s own circus heritage accompany these spectacular works in a show that co-curator Professor Vanessa Toulmin says “illustrates the inclusiveness, innovation and spectacle of circus and celebrates the people behind this truly ground-breaking British-born art form.”

Toulmin, who is known as ‘Professor Vanessa’, is the Chair of Early Film and Popular Entertainment in the University of Sheffield’s School of English, and is renowned for organising circus festivals – including Professor Vanessa’s Wondershow at Circusfest Roundhouse in 2012 and Showzam: Blackpool’s Festival of Circus Magic. She is one of the world’s leading experts on travelling shows and the people who worked in them.

One of those people is Lulu Adams, who was born into a circus family in 1900 and became one of the earliest female clowns to appear in some of the most renowned circuses of the twentieth century.

“As well as being an accomplished charmer of snakes and crocodiles Koringa was a member of the French Free Forces performing secret missions in World War II”

In a career spanning 62 years, Lulu worked all over the world – from the Barnum and Bailey Circus in the U.S.A. to Tom Arnold’s Christmas Circus at Harringay and, apart from her many circus skills, she is best remembered for her bagpipes, which she deftly combined with expert clowning and acrobatics.

Another famous female circus performer is Koringa (1913-1976), who was billed as the “Only Female Fakir in the World.” Her publicity cast her as an ‘exotic’ performer-magician from Bikanir in India, but she was Born Renée Bernard in Bordeaux, France where she was discovered by the Mills Brothers for whom she performed at the Blackpool Tower Circus in the late 1930s.

As well as being an accomplished magician, dancer, charmer of snakes, crocodiles and other wild animals, Koringa’s biography includes a period as a member of the French Free Forces performing secret missions in World War II. She is sometimes pictured in the 1940s wearing the Free French Cross of Lorraine.

Elsie on Hassan by Laura Knight, 1929-30 by permission of Nottingham City Museums & Galleries

Lady and the Lion from Les Roux Cirque et la vie Foraine, published in 1889. Image by permission of The University of Sheffield.

Archive material illustrating these and other circus careers is accompanied by original circus costumes and props including the elaborate pair of late 19th century acrobat trunks worn by foot-juggler Edwin Moxon and the trapeze and costume made and used in the 1990s by Becky Truman, who was just 21 when she established her all-women trapeze company in Bradford.

Also on show is a female equestrian ballerina costume, a Ringmasters uniform and a boy’s clown costume from the Billy Smart Circus, which was the first circus to be broadcast live on television in 1947.

Historical specimens from Sheffield’s Natural Science collection acquired from the many circuses and travelling menageries which visited the city in the late 19th and early 20th century, help to explore how public opinion of using animals in performance changed.

Among them is the rearticulated skeleton of a camel which was originally part of Day’s Menagerie in the late 1800s, a mountain lion from Wombwell’s Menagerie, and a bonobo chimpanzee, which performed in the Bostock’s Jungle Chimps Tea Party, a phenomenon which endured well into the 1970s with the PG Tips Chimps TV adverts.

Here the specimens are accompanied by posters used by activists to protest the treatment of animals in circuses – all part of circus’ rich and varied history, as well as the highs, the lows and the hidden stories of the circus and how it relates to the popular culture of Britain.

Bonobo from Bostock’s Jungle, 1910. Copyright Museums Sheffield

The Circus! Show of Shows is at Weston Park Museum from July 25 – November 4 2018 and continues in October at the Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life and at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle in 2019.

The exhibitions have been developed through a partnership between Museums Sheffield, Norfolk Museums Service, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and The University of Sheffield Library National Fairground and Circus Archive with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Weston Park

Sheffield, south yorkshire.

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The World's Most Famous Circuses

Circuses can become famous due to a combination of factors that contribute to their success and popularity. These factors may include history, innovation, production value, themes and storytelling, awards and critical recognition, performers' talent, branding and marketing, and other factors.

List of the World's Most Famous Circuses

• Circus Vargas is Circus from the United States. It was founded in the mid-1960s by Clifford E Vargas and is today one of the rare circuses to perform in a tent (“big top”).
• Cirque du Soleil is a contemporary circus (“nouveau cirque”) from Canada (Montreal, Quebec) and is considered the largest theatrical producer in the world. Its performance consists of various circus styles from around the world.
• Cirque Medrano is a French circus from Paris. It was formed by the family Cirque Fernando and the British traveling circus family Robert Austen Brothers. It was first Robert Austens Mediterrean Circus, and then it became MedRAno.
• Circus Contraption are a circus, vaudeville, and dark cabaret troupe based in Seattle, Washington. About a dozen performers use live, original music in their performances and sell their music on CDs. Circus Contraption was founded in 1998.
• Circus Krone was founded by Carl Krone in 1905. It is one of the largest circuses in Europe and one of the rare ones, with its building in Munich, Germany.
• Circus Oz is a contemporary circus with elements of rock'n'roll, popular theater, and satire from Melbourne, Australia, founded in 1978. Except for performances, they also have ongoing social justice agendas and often support humanitarian causes.
• Cirkus Cirkör is a contemporary circus founded in 1995 in Stockholm, Sweden. It is predominantly vaudeville and variety show-inspired and performs in small venues. Its home arena is called “Subtopia.”
• Circus Redickuless was formed in Los Angeles by punk-rock impresario “Chicken” John Rinaldi and Michael Gump in 1995. It toured for four years and had talentless performances like: “Speed Metal tap dance,” “The Talking Mime,” and “Amazing Jarico Reese - the talentless magician.”
• Lennon Bros Circus is a traditional circus from Australia founded in the 1890s. They made their big top with wild cats, a staff of 35 people, 14 trucks, two semi-trailers, and 14 caravans.
• Moscow State Circus is the name for various circuses but is most commonly used for two buildings in Moscow: the “Circus Nikulin” and “Bolshoi Circus.”
• NoFit State Circus is a contemporary circus from Cardiff, Wales. They perform, among other places, in a custom-designed big-top spaceship tent.
• Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is a traditional circus from the US founded in 1907. They call themselves “The Greatest Show on Earth.” They maintain two train-based tours (each train is a mile long) and one truck-based tour. Maybe they are the greatest show on Earth.
• Circuba is Cuba's national circus, founded in 1968. Company members are required to complete the normal academic course first, so they can attend four-year training to be circus artisans.
• The Flying Fruit Fly Circus is a youth circus from Australia founded in the 1970s. It is also the only full-time circus school in Australia and provides education programs for kids of varying ages and abilities. The Flying Fruit Fly Circus school was founded in 1987, and it is guided by policy frameworks of the Victorian Department of Education.