Crawley Circus Festival 2015

Orinoco - 2015-08-03 16:49:14 UTC #

Crawley Circus Festival 2015

A good turnout from TWJC this year: myself, Kevin, Simon, Archie, Paul, Louisa (not Laura), Jenny, Simon, Cat, Karina, Ulysses, Other Paul, John/Bruce, Laurence, Robin, Other Simon, Laura, George & Jerry. A few mum's, wives, friends & even the long time MIA Dave L, Helen & their 3 kids put in a welcome appearance for the show as well.

The weather was perfect for the whole weekend. Scheduling the event to coincide with a beautiful full moon was a nice touch which made my late night, "who's still up?" walks very pleasant. Wasps seemed to outnumber humans 8 to 1 this year so it was interesting checking out people's anti-wasp measures which included distracting honey pots, defensive smoking candles & offensive fly swats that doubled up as spanking paddles once the wasps had gone to sleep.

Paul & Louisa (not Laura) brought along a double & single inflatable sofa that inspired most of the tiny amount of juggling I did over the course of the festival. The single was very good for paddidling if you could get it started. With the double I had fun sitting back & juggling 3 over head, throwing one high then throwing one as hard as I could into the seat next to me to bounce back up into my hand before catching the first high ball.

This year saw our most successful pizza run ever. From commencing the order to having the pizza in my hand only took an astonishing 1 hour 19 minutes. This included determining what everyone wanted & placing the order in a truly remarkable 31 minutes. This was easily half the time of our previous best effort & all it took was applying the pressure of having a stopwatch running & me barking at everyone. I even managed to get a hefty discount by smiling sweetly over the phone too! After eating so early I was initially at a loss for what to do with the rest of the evening. Next year I believe we can shave a few more minutes off the time by getting Karina to drive forwards rather than reversing to the pizza place to pick them up.

I sadly failed to get anyone lost in the woods this year due to a lack of adventurous spirit on their part. Why worry? It's only dark & the only person who is likely to leap out at you is me. Maybe one day they will learn that you can see better if you turn your torch off.

Saturday

Saturday morning Richard did the toast fairy thing in a set of splendid steampunk themed shoulder pads which tended to slip into a splendid steampunk themed bra as he walked.

Stephen asked me to stand in for Amie in the annual club stealing workshop while she looked after Lucas & newborn Jake. Being the consummate professional that I am I turned up late & not entirely sober. Our early demonstrations went well & the later ones got the point across! I'm sure Stephen changes the names of the tricks just to confuse me though. I had a lot of fun & surprised myself with the amount of tips I was able to give on the subject as I went round the participants (no idea if any of them were useful or not but that's beside the point).

In the afternoon I had a brief juggle on the lawn & had a go with LP's Salerno ring. I was quite pleased to still be able to do it having not touched one since Bungay. Kev, Simon & Archie all had a go with mixed results. Archie did particularly well considering he hadn't learnt to balance a club on his chin yet. Some bloke called Tiff wandered through & showed us how it should be done.

The Show

Guiding us through the evening as compère was magician & comedian Christian Lee who did a great job of keeping the show going at a good pace with lots of enjoyable silly skits. His puns were so wonderfully awful that they made you hate yourself for enjoying them so much which is everything a pun should be.

Marky Jay did a quite frankly ridiculous spot where he span one diabolo with 13 sets of handsticks. I enjoyed the silly banter & the over the top dramatic music. Kellie Sky did two spots on silks, neither of which appealed to me. She did lots of impressive demanding stuff but I couldn't find anything to get excited about. Helen Orford also did two hula hoop spots, both were good & I particularly liked the quick change performed while spinning many many hoops which was a lovely surprise finish to her first set. I preferred her second spot though primarily because of the very sexy outfit but also because of the moody dubstep violin music (Crystallize by Lindsay Sterling) which fit the piece & the moves she performed very well.

The Void performed his Seriously routine which I have watched a few times on jtv, so it was lovely to finally see live. Later in the evening Jenny commented that, "he looked like the fit teacher in a school talent contest". Make of that what you will.

Also doing two spots was Mathew Tiffany first juggling & spinning rings, then doing a lovely set consisting of some old school combination tricks from the likes of Francis Brunn, some old props including the Salerno ring while juggling 5 balls. In between all that was a fun phonecall to his gran to wish her happy birthday & a flurry of crazy 5 ball stuff as a tribute to Ben Beever that would have made Ben proud.

Nearly There Yet presented a sensational duo acrobalance routine. They performed in silence which I always think is a gamble because your material has to be good enough to make the audience provide the soundtrack, but in this case it certainly was. The opening sequence where the flyer made a series of very precise & subtle jumps up the base's body while he went from lying down to standing was just fantastic. I also really liked the theatrical expressions which were cleverly framed between each others' arms & legs as they moved through the piece to really draw the attention. There were a number of genuinely scary, "how is he going to catch her if things go wrong from that position?" moments. A really striking act, wonderful stuff.

Closing the show was the sensational Ulrike Storch from Germany. She won me over just by the way she walked on stage to get in position before the music started. Her entrance was effectively the equivalent of grabbing the microphone & announcing, "Hi, I'm going to be fucking good". From start to finish every single move she made radiated class, the act was a masterpiece in how to project power & confidence. I loved every twirl, every stylish flourish of her hands, every sexy wiggle of her hips, the way she picked up her props, the way she swept her hair around her neck before upending herself onto the table. This paragraph is already sounding like a love letter & I haven't even mentioned her foot juggling yet which was fluid & precise with tricks that ranged from fast & flashy to slow & graceful all expertly choreographed to the pace of the music. Stunning, incredible, beautiful, superlative, superlative, superlative, superlative, superlative.


No review of the show would be complete without a brief mention of stage hand extraordinaire Haydn Earle (WOOOO!)

Renegade

Mata opened with the traditional beer poi, then he did a rope trick where audience volunteers should've failed to get a ring off of a loop of rope wrapped around the necks of two volunteers but one of the kids came up with a far simpler solution! LP performed the golf club balance, Jugglebug attempted to hula hoop while bouncing along on all fours across the stage. Bungle taped drawing pins, sprung loaded mousetraps & a pair of pants to his clubs which he juggled while telling us his favourite joke. Void showed Jugglebug the correct pronunciation of zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba & also told us a joke backwards. Ieuen tied his wrists together with his belt then juggled 3, 4 & 5 balls, Jack did some top 3 ball stuff, someone sang how much is that doggy in the window backwards, a young girl did an impression of a rabbit's nose with her chin, Laura did a nice song while providing her own percussion by drumming her hands & a cup on the stage. Other stuff probably happened.

Late in the evening I learned things about my fellow TWJC members that I cannot unlearn. Poor Jerry.

Sunday

Some people felt my celebration after beating ~12 year old George at Quoridor on Sunday morning may have been a little bit excessive.

I enjoyed sitting on the lawn listening to Tiff, Paul & another chap playing tunes while I chatted to Archie's mum & watched everyone playing with various toys.

The Games

I think Kevin had won the fancy dress competition from the moment he stepped from behind the marquee onto the playing field. Decked out in a stunning pink & black top hat & tails with kinky boots, an elegant cane & various clockwork embellishments, he looked superb even without getting the smoking stack on his hat to work properly.

Simon won the 3 club gladiators, Kevin won the face balance endurance, Bungle won the 5 ball gladiators with a pacifist run, Danny Colyer put in a very good performance to win the unicycle race after Matt from Southend impressively stacked it a few metres from the line with his shoe lace wrapped around one pedal. Kids these days just don't understand the value of preparation. Matt also suffered during the numbers game when he found himself as the rope in a tug of war match between two groups. However, when that was over the winning group recounted & found they didn't need him after all so Glyn mercilessly threw him to the ground & steered the group away. How is it that I'm the one with the reputation for being ruthless at this game? Jack caught me a treat during the hopping gladiators & sent me flying, I had a heart stopping moment when I hit the ground where I genuinely thought I might have dislocated my right shoulder. Fortunately this was not the case & I was able to move it again after about 10 minutes!

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