In 1768, Philip Astley – the son of an insolvent Staffordshire cabinet-maker – threw his hat into the ring and created the Ha’penny Hatch on the south bank of the Thames, assembling conjurors, clowns and contortionists to form the first modern circus. Museums are marking the 250th anniversary of this very British art form with a range of exhibitions and events.
It’s a generous helping of misfortune, invariably seasoned with a dash of British insouciance, that ensures the lives and works of many distinguished men and women go unrecorded in their home towns. Astley, for example, is a distinctly unsung hero in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
So much so that the local cultural community – universities, library, theatre and museum – has created a packed programme of plays, poetry and performance designed to restore the reputation of Astley, who is known as the father of modern circus.
“We are hoping that by the end of the year, everyone locally will be aware of this remarkable man and his amazing contribution,” says Delyth Copp, the culture and arts manager at the Newcastle-under-Lyme council, who curated the headline exhibition, Philip Astley: His Life and Legacy, at Brampton Museum earlier this year.
The show was part of a UK-wide programme of events and exhibitions under the guise of Circus250. From April until October this year, there is a month-long focus on each of the “six cities of circus”: London, Bristol, Blackpool, Belfast, Norwich/Great Yarmouth and Newcastle-under-Lyme.
“Astley became an apprentice to his father, a rather inept businessman who twice ended up in the Fleet debtors’ prison in London,” says Copp. “The young Astley joined the 15th Light Dragoons cavalry regiment, fighting in the seven years’ war (1756-63), becoming an excellent horseman and making his name through considerable derring-do, including the rescue of the Duke of Brunswick from behind enemy lines – all before he was 24 years old.”
Astley used the equestrian skills he learned on the battlefield and set himself up as a star attraction of that first circular arena in Southwark, running a riding school in the mornings and displaying feats of horsemanship in the afternoons, accompanied by a diverse group of performers.
“People had clowned around, juggled and worked with animals for years but Astley gathered them under one big top,” Copp says. “He was a tall man for the time, strong and ambitious – a little difficult, perhaps, but his charisma attracted people.”
Accounts of Astley’s early shows proved audiences were in for quite a ride.
“Some performances began with an English bulldog ‘parachuting’ into the ring surrounded by fireworks,” Copp says. “Astley’s wife, Patty, was part of the show too – she used to wear bees on her arms like the sleeves of a costume. There’s also a record of a ‘learned pig’ and one poster described the show ending with ‘an amazing machine’ but we will, unfortunately, never know what it was.”
The main attraction at the Brampton exhibition was a model of one of the many amphitheatres Astley built for his shows. Made by a theatrical set-maker from 1820s images, it featured the classic arena and a proscenium arch (an arch over a stage) onto which specially created films and animation were projected.
“It’s not easy creating a lively 18th-century atmosphere in a modern building,” says Copp. “But with the archive material and circus costumes from the period, we aimed to do Astley justice.”
Five years after that London debut, Dublin became the first city outside England where Astley performed with his travelling show. The city’s National Gallery of Ireland has mounted a complementary exhibition – Circus250: Art of the Show (until 14 October) – that highlights artists’ impressions of the circus. Artworks range from sketches – doubtless drawn as the artist sat among the crowd – to more painstaking paintings and etchings, says the curator Joanne Drum.
“One of the most attractive works is a seemingly effortless watercolour by the Irish abstract artist Mainie Jellett, called Under the Big Top at a Circus,” Drum says. “At first glance, it appears as if she dashed off the work quickly, but two rarely seen preparatory sketches provide new insight into her process.”

Putting on a show
Astley began his long relationship with Dublin by opening a riding school in a temporary wooden building in December 1773, says Drum, whose exhibition also features gallery performances from the likes of the contemporary juggler and performer Mat Ricardo, who can not only do the “pull off the tablecloth” trick but also put the cloth back on the table.
“Records reveal Astley’s horse – but not the showman – was also hired to perform with the Corsican Fairy, a performer with dwarfism, at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Astley eventually opened his permanent Royal Amphitheatre in the city in 1798.”
Astley also set his sights on conquering Europe after performing for Marie Antoinette at the Palace of Versailles in France, and built the Amphitheatre Anglais in Paris, the first of 18 permanent circuses on the continent. Once revolutionary fervour had subsided, the French capital became his second home and Astley was buried in the city’s Père Lachaise Cemetery after succumbing to digestive troubles in 1814.

Inclusive art form
Vanessa Toulmin is the founder and research director of the National Fairground and Circus Archive (NFCA) at the University of Sheffield, and knows a thing or two about putting on a show. Take her inaugural professorial lecture when, after solemnly walking behind Sheffield university bigwigs, she slipped out of her gown to reveal full showgirl regalia.
“My lecture was a live show with burlesque performers, sword swallowers and dancing insects,” she recalls. “Knowing I was an entertainment historian, people probably expected something different but there was standing room only and I think it put pressure on my colleagues to come up with something out of the ordinary.”
Toulmin’s bravura performance was based on her academic research but also her childhood, many years of which was spent on the road with her fairground family in Lancashire. The cliche has it that the young and restless run away from their professional lives to join the circus. Toulmin did the opposite, leaving the travelling show for academia and later founding the NFCA.
Toulmin has curated an exhibition at Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum that explores the social and cultural impact of the circus over two centuries. Circus! Show of Shows runs until 4 November.
“I have been asked to work on a lot of exhibitions because people said I brought a bit of sparkle to them,” Toulmin says. “In return, museum people have given me a different viewpoint and trained me in how to communicate stories to the public. I want a show that challenges public perceptions of the circus rather than something about clowns or striped tents.”
To that end, the exhibition explores the role of women and the importance of black performers in the 19th century, while documenting the development of the circus at home and abroad.
“The circus is still an inclusive, universal language of performance and expression that combines the skills and expertise of a wide range of people,” says Toulmin, who is delighted that her star attractions include Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, an 1879 painting by the impressionist Edgar Degas on loan from the National Gallery. The work captures the black French circus artiste suspended more than 200 feet in the air by just a rope clenched between her teeth.
There is also memorabilia celebrating the career of the female clown Lulu Adams, who Toulmin rescued from potential obscurity. “I bought a collection of posters, photos, costume designs and contracts on eBay after it turned up during a house clearance,” says Toulmin, whose Sheffield show is just the opening act of a three-part spectacular. “She was an incredible woman and this marvellous history was nearly lost.”

Historical connections
Later this year, Circus! continues at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne (20 October 2018-2 June 2019) with a strong focus on 19th-century clowning, through collections dedicated to entertainers Billy Purvis and Tom “Whimsical” Walker.
And a familiar name pops up when Circus! rolls into the Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (6 October 2018-3 March 2019). “It celebrates one of Norfolk’s famous sons, William Darby, better known as Pablo Fanque, who was the first black circus proprietor,” says Toulmin. “He assumed legendary status when John Lennon was inspired by his circus poster and included him and his acts in the lyrics to Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite. We tell the rest of his story.”
There is another Beatles connection as the seaside town celebrates its strong circus tradition. Time and Tide has borrowed objects from the nearby Hippodrome, the only dedicated circus building operating in the UK and home to one of the three working water shows in the world.
The Hippodrome is run by Peter Jay, the former frontman and drummer of the beat combo Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, who toured with the Beatles in 1963. Jay admits he kept the town’s circus in business almost as an afterthought.
“I wasn’t a fan of the Hippodrome when we bought the building back in 1979,” he says, adding that the purchase was just to stop the venue becoming another bingo hall. “We already ran a successful bingo hall in the town. Unsure what to do with it, my dad and I decided in a crazy moment to have a go at a circus, and it ended up taking over my life. Ten years ago, I put all my memorabilia and props together in a dedicated museum in the building, giving it the feeling of being backstage at the circus.
“There is even a full-size fibreglass -model of a palomino horse and a rare silk programme from the opening night of the circus in 1903,” adds Jay, who ensures that people can touch all the exhibits. “Like the rest of the building, the museum is styled with a 1903 look, a modern exhibition in a time-warp setting. It’s important that nothing is kept behind glass. It gives the museum life.”

Hard act to follow
Bringing the circus to life through audience participation and live performance was a key element of Circus: Performers, Politics and Pop Culture, which ended in July, at the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Realising that a static exhibition would struggle to -convey the sights and sounds of a full-on night at the circus, the centre called on a local arts organisation with an aerial performance team to provide acrobatic displays in the gallery.
“We are based in an old seed warehouse, which was built with steel girders in the ceiling that are ideal for hanging hoops, ropes and silks,” says the exhibition’s curator, Bryony Windsor. “People came in and had a go on all the aerial apparatus with our resident performers, but they never got more than a few feet off the ground and the experts were always on hand.”
The centre’s galleries were transformed to look like the inside of a big top to explore the look and feel of circus design. “We wanted people to enjoy a completely immersive experience with floor-to-ceiling banners, colourful costumes, Peter Lavery’s evocative behind-the-scenes circus photography and beautiful old letter-press posters,” says Windsor. There were even painted eggs from the Clown Egg Register in London, which catalogues clowns’ made-up faces.
The show also reflected the politics of circus, including the women’s suffrage sideshows and the animal rights debate. “You can’t ignore the story of how, after Astley first brought animals to his shows 250 years ago, circus-goers wanted to see more and more exotic creatures that they wouldn’t find anywhere else.
“In the modern era, of course, more emphasis was placed on human performance since the Animal Welfare Act was passed in 2006,” adds Windsor, who reveals that a big beast features in Lincolnshire’s local circus heritage. “There’s a story that says an elephant with a travelling American circus unfortunately died between Sleaford and Bourne in 1892 and the owner of a park gave permission for the creature to be buried on his land. There’s no hard evidence but we like to think he’s out there somewhere.”

John Holt is a freelance writer