A hollering off-stage and the screech of a train coming to a halt. What's going on? A face peeps out from behind the curtain, then another above it, and another above that. There's something delightfully Godot-esque about the squabbling questions as they emerge, one by one, hauling boxes. "We could be here for some time…" Welcome to the world of Circus Parade, a new musical in development by Jack Horner, who has written, directed and composed it. It's the first production from his newly formed company, Jack Horner & Company.
Given what I know of Jack's career, the fact that he was bringing a circus musical to Jacksons Lane wasn't a surprise. But the fact that he composed all the music too really bowled me over. Before I actually met him at National Circus, I first saw Jack, without knowing it, in Barnum at Chichester Festival Theatre over a decade ago, along with Kook Ensemble Director Michaela O'Connor, when Upswing's Vicki Amedume was circus consultant. There was a moment where they were spinning in umbrellas. I have never forgotten the delight and creativity of it. Latterly, I know Jack went on to do artistic work for Cirque du Soleil on global tours like Totem and Luzia, before heading to the West End as aerial director for Moulin Rouge!.
Circus Parade is based on the memoirs of Jim Tully, who ran away with a travelling circus in the Deep South in the 1900s, and all the colourful characters he met along the way, all set beautifully to the blues. Barnum meets Hadestown, I thought, and I was not to be disappointed. This sharing, about half an hour long, was part of a season of sharings at Jacksons Lane's Circus Hub, where artists open their work and their world to the public for the princely sum of £1. Even so, in August many people are away, especially on Bank Holiday weekends, and it speaks volumes that the place was packed out.
Talk about the blues. I turned up feeling a bit tender myself. After six years teaching in the state sector, I’ve stepped away from the classroom for now, with full-time the only option on the table, to take stock and make some space for my writing. This is my 20th post since the summer holidays began, so that space is clearly being put to use. I miss my students more than words, but I’m also taking a financial leap of faith, choosing freelance work over the security of a monthly pay cheque. So the precarious life of a bunch of misfits on the road, in the shadow of the Great Depression, their skills consistently undervalued and exploited, carried more resonance than it might otherwise have done. I’m not here to play the violin, just to explain why it hit home.
I settled into my seat. What a treat. A band of musicians on stage alongside actors and circus artists who also rotated in roles. What’s the performance equivalent of ambidextrous? “Multi-talented” works, but even that feels inadequate. Anway, the last time I was here, Clamber Collective were also on stage with musicians and physical performers, working in completely improvised territory, a different discipline entirely from the scripted precision on show here, each demanding its own kind of skill and nerve. I am struck again by the sheer diversity of technique and style that has been on offer at Circus Hub throughout the summer.
The action on stage freezes and on comes a wandering troubadour with a guitar, taking the spotlight. Jim Tully, played by Maxwell Darnell, is about to take us back to where this whole journey started, introducing the characters we’ll meet along the way. There are echoes of Barnum in his nostalgia and fondness for those sawdust-and-dream days. A drumbeat comes in, duh-dum, and soon the melody carries the feel of a train on the tracks, and we are rattling along. We are transported to the fare-dodging hobo world of the young Jim Tully, dodging the “dicks”, the private detectives employed by the train companies. Here, the world of the picaresque meets Keystone Cops comedy as an escape runs riot round, and through, the audience.
With the vagrancy laws “hanging over me like a noose,” Jim Tully joins forces with the cleanest of hobos, Damien James’ Rosebud, heading south to join a travelling circus in Baton Rouge. So when Rosebud asks, “Are you sure you wanna be seen walking with me?”, the racial undercurrent is clear. He is navigating Birth of a Nation territory, but Jim gladly accepts his company, not to mention the soap and food. Rosebud carries all the weight of someone whose life is tough, but doesn’t let it grind him down, and keeps going with a humorous, gentle resilience. Maybe that explains the name. I loved this pairing of characters, the young lad with a flash of dreams and a history of giving people the slip, and the gentle giant of a pragmatic friend. And when the same actor later plays Jim’s circus mentor, the lion tamer Denna, there is a balance there too. But Denna’s friendship has to be earned, and if Jim wants this strange little community to trust him, he has to share his story with them too. Jim, who has just fallen for aerialist Alice, jumps right in when she tells him, “no fairytales, mind!” Isn’t that what I’ve been doing these past twelve years with this blog, I wonder?
So Jim takes to his soapbox, the lion’s travel crate, and his guitar solo shows how versatile this cast is. His song of Hard Times has all the punch of a Frank Turner punk rock ballad, with a touch of the Irish about it, and it’s here that we finally meet the circus in terms of skills and acrobatic performance, as the physicality of the company really comes into its own. First up Simeon Montague springs into action, with a spontaneous joy that draws Alice in, while another acrobat, Bella Diosa, does graceful backbend spins in rotation, and Georgie Hutchinson and Will Meager bring the hand-to-hand. For me, that moment captures the joy and camaraderie of the circus community, and it’s crucial to why Jim is so drawn to Circus Moonshine and his growing friendship there. His opening up leads Denna to respond in kind.
Denna’s guitar playing and voice in “Ain’t No Use”, singing of acceptance, are mesmerising. It is a powerhouse of a gospel number, with Jim on bass this time, Jessica Daley on sax solo, and the cast in chorus. Oh lordy, it is just glorious. “When you play, them lions, they listen.” I love how the music is woven into the narrative, his guitar becoming the secret to lull(aby)ing the lions into submission. It took me back to sailing for a moment, to the French Polynesian islander who would serenade a couple of nurse sharks on guitar without fail each evening. Lions are also a metaphor for worries, as Denna makes clear when asked how to control them: “Look ’em in the eye. Turn your back and they’ll bite you in the arse.”
Unfortunately for Lila, the Strong Woman (Jessica Daley), she makes the mistake of looking Trouble in the eye, approaching the new acrobat Anton (Will), the very picture of the romantic hero from the novels we’re told she has devoured over the years. But we already know better. Out of earshot, we’ve heard him mock her as “the fat heifer”, and we can see the snake oil beneath his charm.
Fast forward to Act Two, with the scenes linked together by Jack coming on stage with narrative updates, so that we really do experience the whole arc of the musical. Here we learn that Anton has proposed to Lila, who has given all her money to him to buy the plot of land where they will build a new life together. Of course he disappears without a trace. There is no surprise there, but there is in the number Lila sings, a scene in its own right. What a voice. Her soulful yearning for the presence of this vanished man made me well up for her. What was really brilliant about the choreography was the way a circus artist becomes her mirror at the dressing table, then reaches out to comfort her in her vulnerability. It was so touching. I’ve never known such betrayal, but in that moment I really felt her pain. That’s the power of art. “Gets me every time,” said Jack afterwards.
The profit made from the misfortune of others takes me back to sailing through Martinique, where, in the ruins of the prison at Saint-Pierre, the Paris of the Caribbean, I learned about Ludger Sylbaris, born Louis-Auguste Cyparis, one of only three survivors of the eruption of Mount Pelée, which killed more than 30,000 people within ten minutes. He survived because he was being held in solitary confinement in a prison basement. Rescued from his cell, pardoned and eventually taken on tour with Barnum & Bailey Circus, he displayed his scars and recounted his survival alongside a replica of his prison cell. He became “the man who lived through doomsday”, forced to tell his tale of horror again and again and again. In both cases, the suffering of a Black man became part of the spectacle, an exotic frisson that could be packaged and sold. The parallel is uncomfortable and makes the tragedy in Circus Parade so poignant. These are real lives, shaped by poverty, racism, exploitation and extraordinary resilience.
And now we hear Alice’s own story of hardship, what it cost her and how the Moss-Haired Lady was born.
Here Alice splits in two, body and soul, as Georgia sings with a voice that is crystal clear, sweet and rousingly defiant, while Bella takes to the air in a real showstopper. I loved the use of a hair-hanging act to convey the pain, betrayal and fierce fire that has fuelled Alice’s life on the road. She spins and spins, and the length and endurance of the act become part of the storytelling. It is phenomenal. The spinning is insane, but what gets you is that she keeps going.
By now, the music, the story and the circus have become inseparable. Jack’s achievement is not simply that he has written, directed and composed a musical. It is that he has created a world where the music carries the story, the story gives meaning to the circus, and the physical skills become another language entirely.
And perhaps that is why Circus Parade caught me where it did. As Alice says about the travelling life, it eats you. I get that. And while I’m sitting at something of a Miller’s Crossing in my career, there is something very familiar and cathartic in watching these folk navigate the obstacles. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. But they keep going.
Circus is, after all, about falling, catching, balancing, trusting. You miss the trick. You get back up. Someone catches you. You learn to trust again.
Not because it tells us everything will be all right.
But because it shows us what people do when it isn’t.
I want to see the whole thing now.
Lead photo credit: Mark Morreaux. Cast from left to right back row: Simeon, Bella, Will, Georgia, Damien
Front row: Georgie, Maxwell
Musical direction: Tamara Saringer
Musician: Tony Bowen
Choreography: Vanessa Vince-Pang
Lighting Design: Zoe Spurr
Rigging: Tim Lenkiewicz
Production Management: Acrobatic Arts
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