My iPhone has just reminded me that it is five years to the day since I first saw Revel Pucks in a big top in Walthamstow Forest with Lucy. I remember our journey there. God knows where we got off, but there followed half an hour’s walk through meadows until we spied a big top, with Sam Goodburn sitting on the roof, legs dangling. And I never wrote about it! I’m sorry. I was knocked for six at the time, having only just completed my PGCE.
Lucy was an Art and DT teacher I had met while training at a school in Camberwell, after spotting a fabulous display of student-made circus memorabilia and needing to find out more about the teacher behind it. Lucy was so much fun. Of course she was. It’s all in the name, right?! We hit it off instantly. But she is not either of the two Lucys mentioned in the previous post. As I said before, we are legion.Anyway, we have had all sorts of adventures over the years, but Revel Pucks was our first, and now our most recent, as we went back to see them in Walthamstow again last month.
This time we went with my daughter, a new friend from parkrun volunteering, Maria, and an old university friend of mine, who made it down with his leg in plaster following a bouldering accident, bringing his children with him. Hats off for the dedication. The girls and I found a shortcut this time: a bus from the Tube to virtually outside the tent. It was a close call, though. Lucy was running late and, in a scene somewhere between Amandaland and Challenge Anneka, I somehow persuaded the driver to hold the doors, to the amusement, I hope, of the other passengers.
The show was called A Glimmer Daze Gambit. I love the whimsy of Revel Pucks’ show names. Does founder Luke Hallgarten come up with them, adding word-juggling to his repertoire? I have never asked.The names conjure up a kind of Midsummer Night’s Dreaming, just the ticket for a big top in what feels like the middle of the countryside.This show centred on a pair of clowns who desperately wanted to join the circus. Audition notices had been posted all around the site reading: “Clowns Wanted”.
With the end of term, and my teaching job, in sight, I wondered for a moment whether they might have space for me. The last time a clown had posted a job advert, albeit tongue in cheek — “National Circus are looking for a Finance Manager. Do I know any accountants? Because I could use a pay rise…” — I had ended up with the job, after all.
But here there were two qualified clowns already in the running: Stella and Kit, arriving with everything they needed packed into a suitcase and hoping to join the troupe.There were so many comedy tropes. I loved the different noises each time the suitcase opened, and half expected it to sprout legs and run off stage, a visual gag that Charlie Chaplin’s grandchildren, James Thierrée and his sister Aurélia, used to perform when they were part of their parents’ travelling circus.
There was so much magic and laughter in store: lights spirited from hand to hand as acrobats tumbled down from a three-high; Kit’s flowing juggling; a trike passing through a flaming arch; a balloon man bouncing around the stage. There were moments of sheer wonder: the aerialist on straps spinning beneath the cloud swing; the couple hand-to-hand swinging in the Russian cradle; and two Cyr wheels, one above the other, separated by a platform, with clever lighting bringing them into play with each other. There were ridiculously outrageous turns on the teeterboard, which always freaks me out; a clowning duo on the rola bola, as hilarious as it was cleverly choreographed; and a breakneck roller-skating duet, the performers held together by hands, feet and even necks. My favourite moment, in terms of sheer camaraderie, trust and joy, came when the whole cast managed to balance together atop a giant rola bola. Who thinks these things up? I loved it for its sense of community, fellowship and joy.
On the way home, we caught a bus driven by the very same driver. I think the other passengers were bemused by just how excited we were to see him again.
I had not fully appreciated that, the following month, I would be seeing a completely different Revel Pucks show with a new cast. I had thought it would do me good to see the same show again and write from fresher memories, but there you go. This time I went with friends who had joined me for Kook Ensemble at Jacksons Lane on the Friday. They had fallen so in love with SAND that I suggested they come back for more circus antics two days later.
It was Jon’s birthday, and he is a keen juggler himself. He once tried to teach me to juggle fire clubs. I was pretty pleased with my one-club trick. So back they came, because why not? This time I brought my other daughter, to keep things balanced.
The Wing Scuffle Spectacular took me back to the Revel Pucks of old that I remembered. It announced itself with the anarchic energy of Archaos, complete with a swinging chainsaw to be dodged. As with Glimmer, a clown sits at the centre of the narrative, but this time the story is about friendship and facing your fears. I remember Sam so well from five years ago in a white boiler suit and red cap, although the clown is now female, something very much on my radar at the moment. But that is another story.And what a treat to see someone as much a legend on the unicycle as Sam, whether bouncing up and down steps or zooming around at a diagonal slant in an enchanting routine set to “Send in the Clowns”. As our clown grows in confidence in the story, so does her relationship with a toy lion, which races around the stage on a remote-controlled car and really comes alive. There were clearly repeat customers in the audience. We had only just taken our seats when a child a few places along shouted delightedly to his mum, “Look, I see the lion!” At that point it was tucked away, little more than a pre-performance shadow in the wings. Great spot.
It felt strange at first to see Revel Pucks inside a theatre rather than in the round beneath canvas, but it did not diminish the magic for a moment. The aerial work was superb, from silks to single-point dance trapeze. The teeterboard had more comedy this time, and a narrative about facing fear. The audience urged on, and waved the flag for, the Swiss performer who announced that today she really did not feel like doing it.
Halfway through came the showstopper. Or so I thought. Once again, the cast clambered together onto a giant rola bola. This time, however, the platform was balanced atop a cylindrical object, like a giant double tyre, rather than a globe.That meant it would “only” wobble from side to side, rather than potentially shooting out in any direction, a fact for which I was rather grateful given that we were seated in the second row. It was still astonishing: a delicate balancing act dependent upon every performer making constant micro-adjustments in response to everyone else. But I was slightly nonplussed. I sneaked a glance at my watch. We were about 35 minutes in, just over half way, I would have thought. But was that the end? It had all been so clever that I would hardly have felt short-changed, but still, I had not expected time to fly quite that fast.
Of course it was not the end.
There was more clowning, more acrobatics and more showstopping. There was the awesome club juggling, totally and not remotely a drag, set to RuPaul’s “Sissy That Walk”. And then came a dizzying finale on a piece of apparatus I had been aware of but had never seen used live before: a suspended spiral. It was mesmerisingly beautiful. The movement seemed simultaneously in motion and static, if that makes sense, like one of those trompe-l’œil images of never-ending staircases that appear to go up and down at the same time.That really was the showstopper. Beautiful.
Brava. Encore. Bravo tutti!
Afterwards, we decamped to the Boogaloo, a pub I first visited in August 2014, during a summer of R&D at Jacksons Lane, just as I was getting to know the theatre that was once a church.That brought back memories. So did the sign, beneath which my friend, a girl Sam, sanpped me for posterity, while sipping an Aperol Spritz. It summed up the warmth of this sun-shiney the summer perfectly, along with the words: “O Lord, make me pure, but not just yet.” Sunday worship at the shrine of fools.
Circus, it is so good to be back.
Cheers all!
The Wing Scuffle Spectacular is at Deal from 6 to 16 August, Croydon from 20 to 23 August, and Brighton from 27 August to 6 September.
A Glimmer Daze Gambit is at the Edinburgh Fringe from 8 to 29 August, in the Lafayette at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows.
And one last top tip: search out by show title their cracking playlists are on Spotify.
The dog days are over, and I’m feeling good.
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