Big Kid Circus in Lockdown, a Sad Reflection of Big Tops Around the World ... PC Politics Collide in the Big Cage: Take This, PETA!

As finely reported by Douglas McPherson in London’s The Stage, Big Kid Circus tells a story sadly being told over and over again.  This one is particularly engaging in the human interest department.  Said the show's charming ring-mistress, Olympia Posicra,  “We can’t sit on our backsides many months and expect the performers to do triple somersaults straight away.”

25 Cuban ring wizards, signed to appear in Big Kid’s Latin-flavored Cirque de Cuba, gave all of ten shows in five weeks, plagued by disastrous weather, before arriving in Morecambe last March, there to watch the big top going up —  then suddenly being closed to the public.  The stranded Cubans were given a chance to fly home, but that option  — would they or wouldn’t they? — died when the  borders were shut.  Corona was now running the show.

Brother, can you Spare a Watt?

Virtually penniless, Big Kid Circus has relied on the kindness of strangers with legit resources to share. The local city council in Morecambe is allowing the company to hang around as long as need be, and providing free water and electricity.

Food banks are coming to their aid.  In fact, some of them came to Big Kid, having heard from police that company members were “too proud to ask.”

“There's no people like show people, they smile when they are down” —  Irving Berlin

The most prominent member of the company-in-limbo is Doreen Enos, 9l, who came to visit granddaughter Olympia and then had to stay.   She’s proving to be a great comfort to all.  This woman was once a Digger Pugh Girl touring the U.S.,  who trapezed, made magic, danced, and rode  in comedy cars.

Now Enos enjoys watching  acrobats rehearsing in the big top.   No social distancing here, for the company has been officially designated a “single household.”

McPherson writes of a party atmosphere hiding a “financial nightmare for a company stranded with no income for the foreseeable future.”  “If we didn’t laugh, we’d cry,” said Olympia, seen above.

“You may be stranded out in the cold, still you wouldn’t trade it for a pack of gold”
 —  Berlin

 Now Streaming Live

They are now offering the option of either renting or buying the current show. This I am looking forward to, assuming everything works.  Promo clips of  Cirque de Cuba offer a breezy, high-energy mix of salsa dancing and no-nonsense circus action in bright festive colors. Olympia is a cheerful asset to the party.

Noted she: “Circus has existed in Britain for more than 250 years, and we’re good at adapting.”

You sure are, and you had better be, still. After all, you are the people who literally invented circus.  Okay, everybody Over There, keep a cracking!

When Politics Collide: Back to the Future?

Above, one of Egypt's many fearless females. Below, Luba el-Helw

END RINGERS:  Clashing politics turned on their heads in Egypt: Female lion "tamers," the new rage, and may they take on PETA!  One of them, Luba el-Helw, might now wish she had not divorced her second husband, that is, assuming the show in which Luba cracks the whip, sometimes wearing leopard skin and black boots, has been ordered to close.  In a divorce court,  hubbie told the judge that she treats him “like a circus lion.”... As of March 29, when reported in The New York Times, the National Circus was falling on hard times, performing under a “shabby tent” by the Nile in Cairo, barely making ends meet on cheap tickets to school groups and hard-working families. The upscale crowd were said to prefer Cirque du Soleil type shows .... Maybe over there, but not so much over here? L.A. radio host Bill Handle, high on Vegas shows reopening, but maybe not all of them: “I’m getting a little tired of Cirque du Soleil.” ... He may be missing the grittier primal elements, speaking of which, at the pandering end of a recent film fizzle called Dumbo,  this from a voice of apology — weeping violins, please — for Disney: “We believe that no wild animal should be held in captivity.”  But fake elephants are okay? ... From my mask to yours,  that’s a  sheltered wrap ...