Sawdust Saturday Sizzles: Brits Taking Pride in Circus Heritage ... Big Apple Circus Boss Hinting of Stronger Acts to Come ... End Ringing Jackpots, Too! ...

Those Brits should keep patting themselves on the back for their very own Philip Astley, the dazzling trick horse rider who invented the circus — two hundred and fifty years ago.  His anniversary being celebrated over there with bonny good cheer, a plague to Astley raised near the site of his first shows, and various books and articles touting the rich UK circus history.

Douglas McPherson, penning a great piece on the Chipperfield Circus in The Stage.  Show in its heyday toured under a 6,000 seat tent, 17 tiered rows high.  The family staged chariot races in 1953.  By the time I caught up with them in the mid-1960s, tent was much smaller. Twas a bright and lively show overflowing with animals galore -- among them, canines and crocodiles, sea lions and pigeons, tigers and elephants and bears, and the list goes on!  Some terrific ground and aerial acts, too. 

1955

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Since those halcyon years, various members of the family have splintered off to take out their own shows.  The leading Chipperfield  of the precarious moment is the  young and articulate Thomas Chipperfield, known as “the last lion tamer.” Thomas will be touring this year as An Evening With Lions and Tigers.   A link to the Mcpherson story, thanks to Don Covington:

 https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/2018/circus-250-chipperfields-uk-big-top-history/

    to South Africa, 1964

Astley was not the only trail blazing tycoon on English sawdust.  Lord Sanger, who  purchased Astley’s Amphitheater in 1871, was a publicity hound with a flair for enterprise.  One of his most audacious boasts was that Queen Victoria had granted him a peerage for “allowing” her to inject her royal head into the big mouth of a lion (I hope to see this episode on BBC’s fine new Masterpiece series, Victoria).  Actually, kids, Lord Sanger granted himself the title and made up everything else.  On a higher level, this outlandish Lord out-did Astley’s showmanship by introducing a far grander spectacle that would find an audience, not over there but over here.   

The Three Rings that P.T. Barnum did not invent.  One account credits Lord Sanger for being the first to put out three rings.  I’ve also read that, in fact, the Sanger setup was more like two stages on each side of a single ring. In any case, the idea fizzled fast.  Americans would embrace the concept with glee and demand — at one time, even the smallest U.S. truck shows advertised “three rings!”

 Astley's Royal Amphitheatre

I tip my cap to the ever-theatrical Brits, thanking them for a form of entertainment that has enriched my life.  I only hope this celebration will counter animal-rights extremists throughout the UK  and dissuade parliamentary action from banning all animals from the circus.  The House of Un-commons needs a new party: Fops for Big Tops.

Over Here:  How goeth the new Big Apple Circus?  On paper and on the show’s website video tease,  to my still skeptical  eyes, act lineup looks meager.  In the seats, how are they doing?  Dare I go near the third rail of circus reporting -- bodies in seats?  I dare.  Big Apple Circus boss Neil Kahanovitz was interviewed by The Washington Business Journal (note the word business), in which, not once was the subject of actual business raised!  Lord -- excuse me, Doctor. Kahanovitz, was asked by reporter Sara Gilgore, who did not go in for the killgore, How has the show changed? Answered the good doctor, out of surgery,  "I would like to think that creatively it's better."

And yet he noted, by implication, how not easy it was to cobble together their first show. “At this point last year in March, we had no acts booked, we had nothing from a production standpoint ... From an artistic creative standpoint [that] was very difficult because most of the acts you want to book, book out one or two years ahead.”   

Which raises the Big Question: How much better might the next show be, if there is to be a next show?  "It's really a learning year for us, and hopefully it will be a successful one from a financial perspective."

Yann Arnaud and daughter

END RINGERS: John Ringling North II, e-mailing me:  “I don’t recall anything about animal abuse in my father’s book [Circus Kings].”  Very sad to report, the tragic fall of aerialist Yann Arnuad on Cirque du Soleil, a shocker for many.  An issue overblown by others, with one hysteric claiming how much better safety has become, compared to the 1950s-1960s when  four or  five performers  were killed every year.” Oh really?  But for Cirque marketing, the image of death may not be what they want. .Given their surreal product identity –  circus arts glorified in ballet and special affects -- I think this image is all too real.  The company risks being lumped together with all of the other, less cerebral, but very real big tops still on the road.

Feld family in retreat, take note!  Out there now, there is something calling itself  “The Greatest Snow on Earth,” and the New York Metropolitan Opera  is referring to itself as “The Greatest Show on Earth.”  Hurry, hurry!  Put something out on the road that warbles like a Wagner, stage it under falling fake snow,  and call it your very own Greatest Show on Earth.  All in the name of trademark preservation, you know.

Was that even funny? Well, had you anything better  planned for the moment?

Next: Stuffings from off the cutting room floor. And, oh, I meant to tell you (or myself, if I am the only person reading this) about this phenomenal new movie I just saw, The Shape of Water.  Maybe next time ...

Chipperfields Circus posters courtesy of Circus Mania blog.