‘Keep the spark’

Lloyd Evans visits the NoFit State Circus in Wales and watches an unusual rehearsal

T here are lots of things you can’t do any more. Smoke in a pub. Buy a video recorder. Trust the bloke who runs your bank. And you can’t run away to the circus either. These days the wannabe stilt-walker or trapeze artiste needs to study at college for three years and gain a BA (Hons) in Circus Arts. It can’t be long before the gypsyish traditions of the ring are welcomed into the Olympic family and acknowledged by the Nobel committee. As it becomes more middle class, the circus has modified its bill to suit the prejudices of fashionable morality. The cages and whips have gone. The leotards have been recycled. The elephants are in the zoo, the bearded ladies have had laser surgery and the dwarves are working as disability liaison officers, rather than being fired out of cannonballs.