The Happy Sideshow

From the now defunct Happy Sideshow website...

"The Space Cowboy, Shep Huntly and Captain Frodo had been talking about a name and wanted one that could describe the awesome energy that was created when we performed together. It became evident what it would be during the Lizard festival for the total eclipse of the sun in 1999 in Cornwall, UK, where the dudes were booked to perform and Tigerlil was along for the ride. After arriving and doing solo shows for two days the management called a meeting to tell us that there was no chance the festival was going to make it financially. There was not enough paying custumers. This meant none of the performers would get paid. A lot of the performers and bands cracked the shits. There was a whole lot of shouting, threats and bad vibes all around. At which point Captain Frodo raised his hand and asked the flustered organizers:
"If we all decide to stay and entertain those few thousand people that are here, will the ecclipse still be on?' This broke the ice.

The birth of The Happy Sideshow
photo by Tigerlil.

The three boys decided against doing solo street shows and in a collaborative evening with Howard Marks, The Happy Sideshow was born in a cabaret big top in Cornwall during a total ecclipse of the sun.
From then and for the next four or five years the Happy Sideshow consisting of Tigerlil, the Space Cowboy, Shep Huntly, and Captain Frodo toured the world with their sideshow revival under the slogan "The coolest, Slickest, and Happiest Sideshow on Earth!" The hyperbole was right, as the Way teaches us - with theater less is more, but with sideshow less is not enough.


From the archives of Carnival Cinema comes an almost complete performance of a show called "Torture for Fun." The show was filmed in Stockholm, Sweden in 2003 during Circus Cirkors circus festival called subørb.

Lessons from the Way of the Showman - 51

People love mystery. In performing magic there are two types of mystery involved.
On one level is the Great Mystery, the magical experience, the uncanny, the other, the mysterious deep feeling of experiencing something unknown and unfathomable.
The other level is more superficial, it is the technical question of how something was done. A whodunnit murder, a puzzle, or a card trick are all mysteries seeking to be solved.
A magician, or indeed any Showman, should ask themselves what level they are encouraging their audience to experience their performance on. A performance at its best can function to symbolically awaken us to other realms of experience.

Ask yourself what you are expressing with your acts.