Paul Archer on life in the Circus

The Moscow State Circus has long been one of the traditional highlights of the Fringe Festival returning each year with a new, more spectacular, family show. There has always been a certain mystery and a romantic notion of “running away to join the circus” so I recently had a chat to former circus juggler, and now Tour Director, Paul Archer about life on the road and working under that “magical” canvas.

What is life like for a circus performer?

Life in the Moscow State Circus is extremely exciting, there’s never a dull moment. We usually move on a weekly, sometimes fortnightly, basis and the real buzz is that, each time we move, we get to bring with us some wonderful things that the public will never have seen before. The danger and the excitement that those tricks bring, and sometimes they take many years to perfect, is what makes life in the circus so amazing.

Is being a circus performer something that you train all your life to become?

No, not necessarily. In days gone by, and in the finest tradition of circus, skills were passed from mother and father down to their children and from family to family but a lot of that has unfortunately gone now. It does still happen occasionally and in the Moscow State we do have family acts who have done just that, but at least 50 to 60 percent of our performers are first generation circus acts.

They usually come into it from a gymnastics or sports background but they want to be a bit more artistic, more of a performer, and so they go along to the circus school where they can start their 4 year apprenticeship to hone their skills before they get the opportunity to work professionally in front of a live audience. There is a lot of training involved, a lot of discipline, and it takes a huge amount of skill to get through the schooling process.

Does the Moscow State Circus have its own school?

It does indeed. For the first year of their apprenticeship the new trainees will be taught all disciplines so, whether they want to be a clown or a wire walker, everyone learns the basics like juggling, acrobatics, trapeze and everything that goes to make a circus.

Whichever discipline they show a particular talent for, the apprenticeship will be tailored to perfect that skill. There are one or two circus schools in the UK but the courses are much shorter and so, to be at the top of their game, people prefer to come to Moscow. Cirque de Soleil is a massive international circus company, with about 22 shows playing worldwide, and about 70% of their artists are from the Russian school.

Do the artists continue to train as they travel round?

To be honest with you, the schedule in the season is so busy that there isn’t too much time for that, so usually the only times that they will do additional training is if there is a problem with a trick or if they are learning a new skill. Sometimes we find that a trick isn’t working as it should do and sometimes an artist will get bored with a particular trick. If they want to stretch themselves and expand their repertoire then that could involve many hours of work to perfect a new trick and you’ll often find that the performers return to the ring late at night, after the show, to carry on with their training and rehearsing then. 

There must be many “If at first you don’t succeed” moments with new tricks.

Absolutely! When I was a juggler, and I had a new trick to perfect, I would spend six, seven, eight hours a day just practicing. It’s like a full time job just mastering one new trick. Once you add in the performance times, often twice every day, then you start to see exactly how disciplined life is for us. The high standard of our artists, and indeed circus as an art form, sets itself very high targets to provide something new, fresh and exciting for our returning audiences.

What can your Brighton audience expect his year?

This year’s production is called Babushkin Sekret and is based on an old Russian folk tale, and if I had to pick a couple of highlights I would start with our high wire act. An act like this one hasn’t been seen in Brighton for, probably, 40 years or more. We have a specially designed “chapiteau” big top which is domed to accommodate the complex rigging for their aerial act, but it is supported by only four “king” poles, so as not to obscure the audiences view.

We’ve also got a troupe of jugglers who perform part of their act while standing on the arms of an incredibly fast moving carousel. That’s another performance that can’t be seen anywhere else in the world. Of course, we also have our clowns, Valik and Valerik, who are quite simply masters of their craft.

The Moscow State Circus appears as part of Fringe 2012 from 16 – 29 May in the Theatre Big Top which will be located in Preston Park.