Chipperfields - Europe's largest animal circus

Circus animals are thin on the sawdust these days - you may find a few horses or dogs in a British big top if you’re lucky.


How different it was in the past as this Chipperfields poster from 1959 proves. Under the monocled eye of then TV favourite Fred Emney we find:

- Polar bears and brown bears.

- 4 Shire carthorses.

- a Poodle and Pony revue.

- Europe’s Greatest Elephant Herd (presented by the “15-year-old wonder boy of the circus,” Dickie Chipperfield).

- Nubian Lions.

- Cheeky chimps.

- 16 thoroughbred horses.

- Chako the “almost human” ape.

As if that were not enough, a “Fabulous Exotic Act” featured:

- 2 Giraffes.

- 8 Camels.

- 8 Lamas.

- Harry the Hippo

- and (scribbled in as if almost an afterthought) Crocodiles!

In this later poster from 1963, Chipperfields put the giraffes, camels, lamas and hippo on display but presumably didn’t have enough paper to list the rest of the acts individually, boasting only, “Europe’s largest animal show - over 200 animals.”

“The only circus in the world where this spectacle can be seen,” shouts the advertising copy. To which, half a century on, we can probably add with some certainty, “And which will never be seen again.”

Coulrophobia!

Hope no-one minds the new picture behind the title of this blog. Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns and according to Jasper King of the Chipolatas, it's rife in Britain, which is why he and his troupe of musical jesters have dispensed with their white faces. Other funny-men have reduced their motley and slap to a minimum so as not to scare the kids.

Clowns
Funny or scary?

For more on the changing face of clowning, from 19th century pantomime star Joseph Grimaldi, after whom clowns are still nicknamed Joeys, to today’s kings of big top comedy, Clive Webb, Danny Adams and Bippo, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

The Mail on Sunday said, “Circus Mania is a brilliant account of a vanishing art form,” and “an excellent book.” Who am I to disagree?

Buy Circus Mania direct from Peter Owen Publishers at the special offer price of £10 including postage and packing in the UK (add £2.75 postage rest of world).

Send cheques to:

Peter Owen Publishers
81 Ridge Road
London N8 9NP

Did you know...
That August 1 - 7 is International Clown Week - a celebration that was written into American law by President Richard Nixon on August 2, 1971? Look out for more clown facts on the Circus Mania blog soon.

How to Juggle in Five Easy Steps

It takes a lifetime of dedication
to juggle like Jasper King
from musical clowns the Chipolatas.
Read his story among the many in
Circus Mania.
(Photo by Raphael Helle,
courtesy of the
Norfolk and Norwich Festival) 







If you’ve ever wanted to juggle then today, World Juggling Day, is the day to start. Juggling is great for improving hand and eye coordination and is said to improve creative thinking by uniting the left and right halves of the brain. Here are five tips to get you started.




1 - Invest in a set of soft leather, sand-filled juggling balls. They’re easy to catch and won’t bounce away when you drop them.



2 - Go outside where you won’t hit anything with a flying ball.



3 - Practise throwing one ball in an arc from hand to hand, with your hands a couple of feet apart, just above waist height, and the ball reaching head height. As you get used to it, begin moving your hands in a circular juggling motion with each catch and throw.

A young Gerry Cottle shows
off his juggling skills
and fancy footwork

4 - With a ball in each hand, throw the right ball in an arc towards your left hand. Just before it reaches your hand, throw the left ball to your right hand. Don’t place the ball in your left hand as that will make it harder to progress to three balls. Catch both balls and repeat until confident.



5 - Once you’ve mastered two balls, begin with two balls in your right hand and one in your left. Throw one ball from right to left. Before it reaches your left hand, throw the left ball to your right hand. Before it reaches your right hand throw the second ball to your left hand. Before it reaches your left hand, throw the ball in your left hand to your right hand.

Keep doing this and... hey, you’re juggling!

15 FACTS ABOUT JUGGLING!

For World Juggling Day - Saturday June 15.

Jasper King of the Chipolatas
shows how it's done.
Read his story and tales of many
other circus performers
in Circus Mania
- The Ultimate Book for Anyone
who Dreamed of Running
Away with the Circus

1 - The earliest depiction of juggling is painted on an Egyptian tomb dating from almost 2000 years BC.



2 - Ancient Chinese warriors would show off to their enemies by juggling before battle.



3 - George Washington watched John Bill Ricketts juggle on horseback in America’s first circus.



4 - Bounce juggling became possible with the introduction of rubber balls in the late 19th century.



5 - Clubs are easier than balls to juggle on a unicycle because they require less accuracy to catch.



6- Charles Hoey was the first man to juggle with four clubs - but he couldn’t stop without dropping them, so the curtain had to come down while he was still juggling.



7 - Juggling burns 280 calories an hour.

The Melvilles show how to juggle with
the dinner plates in a great DVD called
Variety Turns of the Post War Years
Read my review here.

8 - Germans such as Salerno (Adolf Behrend) introduced the ‘gentleman juggler’ style that became popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, wearing formal evening clothes and juggling with dinner party items such as plates, bottles, loaves of bread, hats, canes and chairs.



9 - Enrico Rastelli (1896 - 1931) is considered greatest juggler of all time, being able to juggle ten balls at once.



10 - Antipodism is another name for foot-juggling in which the juggler lies on his or her back to spin and flip objects (or another person) with their feet.



11 - Foot-juggling with a person is known as a Risley act after the 19th century American pioneer of the style Richard Risley Carlisle.



12 - Britain’s first juggling superstar, Paul Cinquevalli made his debut at Covent Garden in 1859.



13 - Rings are the easiest prop to juggle in large numbers because they’re light and it’s easier to hold several.



14 - Scarves are the easiest item to begin juggling with.



15 - The International Juggling Association was formed in 1947.



CELEBRATE WORLD JUGGLING DAY

Fancy a weekend in the Lake District with 100 jugglers? Just grab your balls (or, um, your clubs) hop on your unicycle and head for Rothay Park Football Field, Ambleside, near Windermere, between early afternoon on Friday 14 and early afternoon Sunday June 16. For just a tenner, you can pitch your tent and join a gathering of jugglers that has been meeting annually since 2000 to celebrate World Juggling Day in the sun.

For more info visit www.worldjugglingday.co.uk

For all things circus, buy Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

Circus Mania author
Douglas McPherson

Circus Mania on the Radio!

June 12 news: Just come back from a guest appearance talking about circus and juggling on BBC Radio Norfolk. Click here to hear the show online for the next seven days (navigate to Listen Again, Stephen Bumphrey Show, June 12 - I'm on about half way into the show, just after 2pm).

Zippos rides into Scotland - Roman style!

Nicky de Neumann
riding Roman style

The word circus dates from ancient Rome when arenas such as the Circus Maximus were host to hair-raising chariot races.

Zippos will be bringing a touch of the Roman hippodrome to the modern circus when it arrives in Glasgow this week, in the form of Nicky de Neumann’s daredevil horse-riding.

Nicky, seen here riding Roman style, with a foot on each horse, grew up in Croydon where her parents apparently couldn’t afford to buy her a pony, so she learned to ride with the local Gypsies. She’s been putting on a wild show ever since, having even appeared as the gun-toting cowgirl Annie Oakley in a wild west display at Euro Disney.

Joining Nicky in the sawdust circle at Glasgow’s Queen’s Park from June 11 - 16, before the Zippos tent moves on to the city’s Victoria Park (18 -23) and then Edinburgh (26 - 30) are Cuban acrobats and a strongman called Hercules who likes having a car driven over his chest.

There will be more stunt riding - on roaring motorbikes - in the Globe of Death, while Britain’s most distinguished ringmaster, Norman Barrett MBE, presents his famous budgies.

To book your seat, call 0871 210 2100.

The Zippos showgirls waiting to go on.

(Both photos: Piet-Hein Out, courtesy of Zippos)

Backstage at Zippos

But what’s life like behind the red velvet curtain of the Zippos big top?

Read an in-depth interview with showman Martin Burton in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book for Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away with the Circus.

In a chapter on Zippos, Burton talks about:

- His journey from Covent Garden street clown to owner of Britain’s most popular traditional circus.

- The on-going battle with animal rights protestors.

- Behind-the-scenes secrets of BBC1’s Amanda Holden sitcom Big Top.

- His Academy of Circus Arts in which YOU can learn how to be a circus star while travelling around the country putting on shows in a real big top.

Circus Mania is available in paperback or as an ebook from Amazon, or direct from Peter Owen Publishers for £10 including post and packing in the UK (Add £2.75 for overseas orders). Send cheques to:

Peter Owen Publishers
81 Ridge Road
London N8 9NP

And may all your days be circus days!

Coming soon on Circus Mania:
June 15 is World Juggling Day - Read 15 Facts about Juggling on Thursday June 13.
On Monday June 17, roll up, roll up for The Glory Days of Chipperfields - Europe's largest animal circus!

Inside the BBC's Big Top

Lights!

Camera!

Action!


Digging through the archives, I found these behind-the-camera pictures from the making of the 2009 BBC 1 circus sitcom Big Top.
Set in the fictional Circus Maestro, the series starred Amanda Holden as ringmistress Lizzie, alongside Ruth Madoc and Tony Robinson. As these pictures show, the location shots were filmed in the big top normally occupied by Zippos' travelling circus school, the Academy of Circus Arts.

Click here to read more on the making and reception of Big Top.

And for the full backstage story of what life's like in the circus, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

Photos courtesy of Zippos Circus

If you hate visiting the dentist, don't read this interview with Australian circus girl Chelsea McGuffin

Chelsea McGuffin
Photo by Raphale Helle
Courtesy of Norfolk and Norwich Festival

The great thing about circus is that no matter how many shows you see you always get at least one thing that’s jaw-dropping amazing. Australian acrobat Chelsea McGuffin provided one of many such moments when I visited a performance by leading Aussie company Circa during the writing of Circus Mania. Midway through the show, Darcy Grant hooked his fingers in her mouth and, to the audible disbelief of the packed audience, dangled her from the trapeze by her teeth, like a fish on a line.


Last year I ran into Chelsea again when she was appearing in Cantina, a show she’d devised herself as the centerpiece of the five-month London Wonderground festival at the Southbank Centre. I reminded her of the tooth hang and had to ask... doesn’t that hurt?

“It doesn’t hurt too much. It’s more about having the will to do it. Circus is something you have to be very passionate about to commit to and want to wake up everyday for. But it’s definitely what I’m passionate about.”

How did you get into circus?

“I sort of fell into it. I thought ballet was my calling but in my early 20s I stumbled across a circus class in Sydney that I really enjoyed. From there I joined a nomadic circus called Circus Monoxide. It was a contemporary circus but very much based on the traditional model of travelling to town and setting up our rig and our tent. That’s where I learned most of my skills as well as things like how to negotiate living on a bus with 12 other people. It was a great life experience.”

An OMG moment
as Darcy Grant
prepares to suspend
Chelsea McGuffin
....by her teeth!

How big is circus down under?

"For a small population like Australia, circus is quite big. Our two major companies are Circa and Circus Oz but there are many smaller groups and a lot of independent work. Every state has a circus school, but we lack the audience numbers so a lot of work gets created but it’s more likely to have its life overseas.”

Does circus have a retirement age?

“I think it’s up to how long you feel like being on stage and how long your body can hold out. I’m 36 and I don’t recover as fast as I did in my 20s. But it’s still something I’m really passionate about and I hope I can keep doing it for many years yet.”

For more examples of the pain circus performers put themselves through in the name of art, read Circus Mania. Be warned, though, that the chapter on the Circus of Horrors is not for the squeamish. One of America’s most eminent circus writers admitted there were some sentences he couldn’t bear to read!

Gerry Cottle then and now

John Masefield likened Circus to Paradise - “a world of strangeness and beauty in which all the inhabitants have a loveliness, a skill or swiftness not before seen, and where even the oldest jokes take on new life.”

Those words open the text of this delightful programme for Gerry Cottle’s 1984 season. The programme goes on to say:

“Gerry Cottle’s present purpose is not simply to restore Circus to how it used to be, but to make it as it never really was: to make our childhood dreams a reality - to create the circus we thought we saw as children, and, as grown-ups, had come to believe we would never see again.”

It was a ground-breaking show in two respects. Firstly, it had no animals at a time when the campaign against animals in the circus was starting to take hold among the local councils who licensed show grounds, but when the majority of circus-goers still expected to see them. Secondly, it included the students of Cottle’s first circus school who were recruited in open auditions around the country.

The circus had a vintage look

Like many things that are ahead of their time, the tour had a mixed reception, doing well in more arty, cosmopolitan areas, and less well in the more traditional provinces. But it left a lasting legacy. Among the alumni of Cottle’s school was aerialist Andrew Watson who went on to become a leading light in Cirque du Soleil.

Cottle himself remains committed to nurturing the circus talent of tomorrow. At Britain’s oldest tourist attraction, the prehistoric Wookey Hole caves in Somerset, he runs a new circus school for children who put on shows for the public every weekend and school holiday.

He has a recently-built hotel on site, making Wookey the ideal location for a West Country break. As well as the caves, a dinosaur park, fairy garden and, of course, a circus museum, you may even see his students create what in 1984 he promised would be “The circus that never was, but always should have been.”

For more information call Wookey Hole on 01749 672243.

Gerry Cottle in 1984

See also my earlier posts on the Gerry Cottle story and the witch of Wookey Hole.

For the full story of Gerry Cottle and his Wookey Hole Circus School and the stories of many more colourful characters from circus past and present, read Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With the Circus, available in paperback and ebook.

Click to buy from Amazon or order direct from Peter Owen Publishers for just £10 including post and packing in the UK (add £2.75 postage worldwide). Send cheques to:

Recreating the circus "as it never was
but as it always should have been."

Peter Owen Publishers
81 Ridge Road
London N8 9NP

Tel: 020 8350 1775 in office hours.

From Zippos to Maestro

My previous post with a picture of a Pinder’s Circus lorry in the 1930s, reminded me of these pictures of more recent circus transport.


When the BBC made the 2009 sitcom Big Top it borrowed Zippos smaller tent, which is normally used by the circus’ travelling Academy of Circus Arts, and some of its lorries, all of which were re-branded with the name of the fictional Circus Maestro.

Starring Amanda Holden, Ruth Madoc and Tony Robinson, Big Top got a reception from the critics as frosty as these wintry scenes.

But although it was a big flop, the show looked fantastic with every backstage scene and caravan interior filled with atmospheric detail.



Click here to read more on the making and critical reception of Big Top.

And buy Circus Mania for a full chapter on the show and an in-depth interview in which Zippos director Martin Burton tells the story of his journey from Covent Garden street clown to owner of Britain's most popular traditional circus.

Visit Zippos!
If you're in the Birmingham area you can see Zippos at The Pavillion, Perry Bar until Sunday June 2, before the circus moves to the Metro Centre in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, from June 11 - 16.
To book call 0871 210 2100 or visit www.zipposcircus.co.uk


Coming soon on Circus Mania!
Don't miss:

June 5 - Gerry Cottle then and now!
June 10 - Zippos rides into Scotland - Roman style!

Two hundred years in the circus

One of the most interesting people I met while writing Circus Mania was retired ringmaster George Pinder. He gave me this picture of his uncle Tommy, on the road with Pinders Circus in the 1930s, and told me how his family was one of the first to introduce motorised transport to the big top.

“Between the two world wars, we had motor lorries, but we still used horses as well. I remember saying to my dad, ‘Them first lorries you had, how fast did they go?’ Oh, about 12mph or 15mph. ‘So how far behind were the horses when they came in behind the lorries?’ Oh, 15 or 20 minutes. ‘So what did you bother with the lorries for?’ ‘Because you didn’t have to get up at five o’clock in the morning and catch them!’

Pinder comes from one of the oldest families in the circus. Its youngest members, sisters Carol Macmanus and Gracie Timmis run one of the last traditional big top shows still travelling with animals, Circus Mondao.

The following pictures from George’s personal archive provide a trip back in time to when his great-great-grandfather Thomas Ord, a Scottish minister’s son, ran away with a travelling show and went onto to become an equestrian star 200 years ago.

Royal Continental Circus poster, 1926.

Inside the Pinders big top in the 1930s.

The circus in the 1890s.

A poster advertising the horsemanship of Thomas Ord (George’s great-great-grandfather) dated October 25, 1817.

To read the full story of Britain’s oldest circus family, buy Circus Mania from Amazon or order direct from Peter Owen Publishers at the special price of £10 including posting and packing in the UK (add £2.70 postage worldwide).

Peter Owen Publishers
81 Ridge Road
London N8 9NP

Tel: 020 8350 1775




Grand Continental Circus with Pinder and Sons, Dundee, 1926