The Invention of the Circus Ring

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2018

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Philip Astley and his trick riders performed in 1768 in a circle not a straight line in a field behind where Waterloo station is now, the idea of the circus ring was born. Matthew Sweet looks at the career of the impresario, his 42 foot diameter ring which is still the big top template and 250 years of circus with historian Vanessa Toulmin, performer Andrew Van Buren whose family have worked for 35 years to bring Astley's name to greater public attention, writer Naomi Frisby whose research focuses on women's bodies in relation to circuses and sideshows and Tom Rack, artistic director of NoFit State circus

Circus250 is a celebration with events around the UK and Ireland.

Producer Torquil MacLeod.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.1	Hello, I'm Matthew Sweet.
0:33.8	Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion program, which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate.
0:42.8	If you enjoy what you hear, do subscribe. Search for the Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:48.3	And while you're there, please rate and review us. It'll help other people find us.
0:52.9	This is the BBC.
0:58.0	There are certain cultural forms that connect you with traditions of performance that are so old and deep that they can give you a kind of historical vertigo.
1:07.9	When we watch Hamlet die as Hamlets have been dying since the reign of the first Elizabeth.
1:13.4	When we go to the Panto and see routines with sausage pies and wallpaper paste that we saw as
1:19.3	children, just as our great-great-grandparents saw them. And when we enter the canvas tent that
1:25.4	materializes from time to time on common ground at the edge of town,
1:30.3	bringing with it people who are not generally like us, circus folk.
1:48.6	They're exotic, they're international, or they're pretending to be.
1:52.4	They have muscular calves and slightly dirty bare feet.
1:56.9	They have skills like horsemanship, ledger domain, nerve.
2:00.5	They dress in spangles and feathers and grease paint.
2:04.1	And this edition of free thinking belongs to their world.
2:10.9	So let me introduce you to the acts who will take a tightrope walk through the history, theory and practice of circus.
2:18.5	Without a safety net, will you welcome please Professor Vanessa Toolman, founder of the National Fairground Archive in Sheffield.
2:23.8	Naomi Frisby, who is an academic working on the history of female performers in the circus and sideshow business. She joins us from Sheffield. Tom Rack, the artistic director of the
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