JANEY T. CLOWN’S ACA DIARY 2007

MAY

The morning of the 7th May 2007 dawned in a typically British rather non-committal way, not warm, not cold; not wet, not dry – it just happened as most mornings do. But this was no ordinary day. Today was the day I was to fulfil a dream. Today I was to run away with the Circus!! I was to spend the next six months of my life touring, performing and training with the Academy of Circus Arts in a real life Big Top Circus Tent –exciting or what????

I joined the circus in a field in Wendover, turning up in my brother’s car which was packed to the hilt with all the essentials required for circus life; a computer with internet connection, a squeaky rubber chicken, a fridge, two spongey bricks and a pair of Welly-boots. I was ready to begin my Circus adventure. I met Greg Milstein, ACA’s general manager, who showed me to my ‘house’, a very cosy affair with a bed, a gas stove and grill and, joy of joys, my very own chemical toilet!! My ‘house’ or ‘shed’ as I would affectionately refer to it, was actually the penthouse suite of the student accommodation and was the middle room of a small block of three single rooms occupied by the three oldest students, and so it thus became known as the “Geriatric Unit” – but I didn’t care ‘cos my door had a proper key!!!

Other students had started to arrive. I was overjoyed to see Hilary Budge, whom I had met at my ACA audition the previous September where we had bonded over our quest to locate a sandwich on a housing estate in Deptford. My neighbours in the “Geriatric Unit” had also arrived. Josie Heaney from Belfast, Ireland who arrived with lots of cardboard boxes and a suitcase that wasn’t actually hers (she had picked up the wrong bag at Heathrow and thus I immediately liked her!) and on the other side, Daniel Kiphart from Santa Fe in the USA. What a truly International affair this was turning out to be – except for Hilary who was from Reading. But we were not here to socialise. We were here to work and learn! I had barely begun to un-pack when the call came from Greg for our first (and possibly most important) lesson of the course: ‘How To Set Up Your Chemical Toilet’ otherwise known as toilet training. I had only known Josie five minutes and already I had borrowed a pair of rubber gloves from her and discussed my toilet habits – the start of a beautiful friendship. That evening was spent in the local pub getting to know all the other students and our teachers. Very civilized I thought. I could get used to this!

The real work began in earnest the following morning. I woke very early and stood at the door of my shed with a bowl of cornflakes in my hand, took in a deep breath of fresh morning air and felt incredibly happy. Our first job was to put up the Big Top! There are not many schools where you have to build your class-room before you can begin lessons! We started by 'pounding’ stakes, knocking huge metal poles into the ground with 14-lb sledge-hammers which was extremely hard work and something that I never really did get the hang of for the whole season. During the tour I did get quite good at straightening and ‘ratchetting’ the side poles. Putting up the side walls was always fun as we had to sit on each others shoulders and would usually sing silly songs to help the process along. Personally I always enjoyed watching the King Poles being raised. Then it really felt as if the Circus had truly arrived in town! (It was also a great opportunity to sit down on the grass for 20 minutes and have a cigarette!)
As soon as the tent was up we began to rehearse and train for our first public show that was to open in just ten days time. I was to work with Alex Morley on the clowning stuff in the opening number, so as the dancers danced, the jugglers and unicyclists practised and Hilary learned to stilt-walk, me and Alex worked with Greg on all the exciting ways you can kick each other up the backside, fall on the floor and lose your trousers!

Over the following week we would get up early every morning and begin each day with a warm-up. Jogging, stretching, strength training and working on bits of my body I didn’t know I had with Ann Dorwin, the course training director and resident sadist. I discovered that reciting silly poetry whilst attempting the splits actually eased the pain. Helena Dahl, a student from Norway, greatly appreciated my renditions, even joining in herself with some stupendous quotes from “Alice in Wonderland”. I rather think we began to get on everyone else’s nerves though, so we stopped, at least until the following day!! After warm ups we would rehearse the comedy vaulting act and the opening number. In between all this would be loads of general lessons in everything from juggling, comedy and clowning to unicycling, acrobatics and aerial work. I began ‘free-standing ladder’ lessons with Zula Jambaa, our fantastic acrobatics teacher from Mongolia. Ladder is an incredibly difficult skill to learn – I probably wasn’t going to master it in five months, but I was determined to give it my best shot. Tumbling quickly became my favourite lesson, and considering how ancient I am, I was quite good at it. It was during the early clowning lessons that the now legendary “Brick-ish Telecom” routine was created based on the old “Ring Ring” gag – I knew that bringing those rubber bricks wasn’t such a foolish idea!

The shows went down very well with the paying public and we even managed to find time to have a BBQ! Much beer was drunk, burgers consumed, fire juggled and unicycles raced. Lorna became Queen of the game Unicycle Sumo where opponents battle each other on unicycles to remain upright!

I feel that I should get in the fact that I was the first student of the season to ‘dump’ their toilet! The rest of the students had in fact got to the sewer first and stood watching as I dragged my loo across the field towards them. They were all stood around the open hole in the ground and invited me to have the dubious honour of being the first ‘dumpee’. I accepted graciously and as I did the deed they all recoiled in horror complaining of the odour! “Well of course it stinks”, I said, “its s***!!” This memory will be etched into my impressionable psyche for ever!!

After our adventures in Wendover we ‘jumped’ to Redbourn in Hertfordshire where we were to perform at the County Show. The move for me was a little nerve-racking as it was the first time I had ever driven a vehicle towing a caravan. It was probably even more nerve-racking for Steph King, one of our teachers, as I was pulling her caravan! All the way there I kept checking the mirrors as I was convinced that it would fall off the back of the van. We later named this transit van Lynford after the runner Lynford Christie – it was an ironic name as our little baby was by no means built for speed! Thankfully, we got to Redbourn without incident where we spent a fantastic few days training and performing to a packed tent!

JUNE

The end of May and the beginning of June was a rather unusual time at ACA as during this week we didn’t have our tent. This was because we were performing and training at the famous Windsor Theatre Royal. For me this was doubly odd as I live in Windsor and was able to go home for a few nights. After getting used to working and living in a touring Circus for the past month it was quite strange to once again have the luxury of flushing toilets and hot baths! Our time at the theatre was quite an education as we got to work with some excellent professional performers such as the wonderful ringmaster David Hibling, the brilliantly hilarious clown Tweedy and the aerial sensation that is Robert Foxall.

It was good to get back to our tent though and the following two weeks saw us pitching up in Streatham and Barking in London, performing in two children’s charity events which really were fantastic fun. Performing for children always makes me feel so glad that I’m a clown and not an accountant!!

It was in Streatham where we began working on the first ever ACA ‘slosh’ act. It was a hot, sunny day (not many of these occurred in 2007!) and Greg suggested that as a clowning lesson we should take the ring mat outside and experiment with buckets of water and ‘slosh’. Possibly the most fun lesson of the season, we were a source of extreme confusion to passers by walking their dogs. I don’t think that the rest of the students believed that the clowns were having a proper lesson, but from all this hilarity the act “CircusCleaners.com” was born, an act that brought the house down at the Graduation Showcase at the end of the year – so you see, we were working!!!

From Barking, we jumped to Dudley in the Midlands where we were to perform a one-off special show for a corporate awards evening. Our surroundings were beautiful and our tent was to be built up on a lovely flat lawn in front of a stately house. Looks can, however, be deceiving. The lawn looked great but it was very wet and the consistency of sponge-cake. This meant that although the stakes went in easily, they also came out just as easily thus rendering our tent somewhat unstable. As the storm clouds gathered ominously overhead threatening a deluge of biblical proportions the tent stakes were backed up then backed up again and tied off to the axles of the tent truck. We were all instructed that night before going to bed that we should sleep with our steel-capped boots, hard hats and rain gear to hand as we may be called on overnight to help save the tent!!!

Thankfully, the storm passed by and the tent stayed up. The corporate bods who had booked us then took over, installing tables, chairs and a hideous pink carpet into our poor Big Top. We spent that morning learning how to sew sequins onto our costumes (a very important skill in the Circus!) and I experimented with trying to colour slosh pink by adding Ribena fruit cordial. I feel that I should point out at this moment that ‘slosh’ is made from shaving foam. Hilary, being Hilary, had invited herself over to my shed and as usual helped herself to whatever food that was lying around. Oh how we laughed when she took a spoonful of pink slosh and put it in her mouth thinking that it was Strawberry Flavoured Angel Delight!!!

Our next port of call was back down south in Gosport. We were going to be spending the next week on the HMS Sultan Naval Base performing at their annual gala. It was here that we debuted the “CircusCleaners.com” act. Greg decided that we needed a full rehearsal with all the gunge and water which we agreed with. Then he decided (in a moment that can only be described as sadistic evil) that the only time we had to do this rehearsal was first thing in the morning. As I stood in the middle of a field at 8.00am in the morning having buckets of cold water thrown at me, I began to question whether being a clown was really a vocation I wanted to pursue… perhaps I should be an accountant?

We finished our time in Gosport in fine style – celebrating Greg’s birthday across the road at the pub!! We all had a merry time that night; Hilary pulled the guy who worked on the burger stand. I did a little better, catching the attentions of the event’s site-manager – hey, I got a free bottle of wine out of it!!
Moving on again, we made a short jump to St. Mary Bourne for a small family gala. Most memorable moments here include falling down a hole, making the most of the last day of being able to legally smoke in any public building in the UK and Trigger, a girl whose family was organising the event. She was great fun and we wanted to take her on tour with us!

As we were almost into July, our time at ACA was marching on and it was at this ground where the students had to make up their minds what acts they wanted to work on for presentation at the final showcase. One by one the students were summoned into Greg and Ann’s caravan where we discussed our intentions! I decided to work on a giraffe unicycling act – something that I knew was realistically achievable in the three and a half remaining months, but would also push me to improve my skill levels. The free-standing ladder lessons would continue though, after all I was now up to the third rung and managing to stay there without screaming too much! (Zula would always be there to catch me on the safety lunge-line should disaster occur!!)

JULY

It was onward and upward, to Didcot in Oxfordshire for a short run of shows and lots of training. Our lessons were now starting to take on a more serious edge as the students began to specialise more in terms of the skills they needed for their individual showcase acts. At this time, our public shows still consisted mostly of the ACA teachers acts with the students performing in the ensemble numbers. The clowns were doing pretty well though! We had two acts in already – “CircusCleaners.com” and the by now renowned “Brick-ish Telecom” both of which seemed to go down well with the paying public.

Didcot was particularly memorable, as it was here that the ultimate toilet dumping disaster occurred. (Yes, I know, I’m talking about the bogs again, but they were a big part my circus experience). Greg had told us tales of past dumps where drain covers had been dropped into the sewer. This is not a good thing we were told, as the covers are heavy and nigh-on impossible to retrieve. It was bound to happen. The cover did indeed slip from our hands and end up down the hole. After a lot of poking around with a side pole and discussions on who would be stupid enough to climb in and get it, we had to concede defeat, cover the hole with a bit of wood and leave it well alone.

Our next jump took us to a school in Romsey, where we were to spend a week in residence on the playing fields, teaching the children circus skills. It was here that we experienced our most dramatic build-up of the season. Again, the ground was very wet and also full of gravel since they were school fields. As a result the King Pole stakes almost completely pulled from the ground. We were ordered to get off and away from the tent as quickly as possible – which we did! Luckily, once again, the tent stayed up, the stakes were backed up and disaster averted by the brilliance of our highly experienced teachers. Kebabs were had for dinner and Hilary and I made everyone a cup of tea!

We spent a fun week at the school. The group of about 50 school children were encouraged to choose an act from the eight basic circus skills that we taught (juggling, plate spinning, devilsticks, diabolos, stilts, acrobats, hula-hoops and silks). My team of kids learned plate spinning and put together a pirate themed act. All of the kids put on a huge show for the rest of the school and their parent at the end of the week. It was tremendous!! We also managed to practice during the week and my ladder walking was getting better – up to the forth rung now, still with a lot of help from Zula. Plus Greg was starting to teach me how to free-mount my 5ft unicycle.

After a quick jump and a one-off fun day event in London, we were once again on the road. This time, it was a long one. To Scotland!!! We were off to perform at the coolest event of the season – the Wickerman Festival. Great bands, great music and a big burning Wickerman!! What a fabulous weekend. Not a lot of sleep was had as there was just too much to see and do and as the music went on pretty much all night, it was a case of if you can’t beat them, join them – so we stayed up! Elias Kaiteris, Lorna Moon, Michael Ionescu and Max Beecher were a hit here with their late night fire shows and once again our circus performances were very popular. Sarah Cowan, our only Scottish student (I said we were truly international) was the first student to perform a solo act in the show with her web routine and she was great! I was also developing a nice little plate spinning act with a volunteer from the audience.

The festivities over, it was time for the long drive back down south, and what a long drive it was. After bursting a tyre on Steph’s caravan we limped into Forton Services on the M6 about two hours after everyone else. Here, the whole circus spent the night – and most of the following day as Zula and Marius went on an epic quest to find a new spare tyre for the “Geriatric Unit”. Being stuck on the M6 however, did not stop us training! We had an impromptu clowning lesson in the coffee bar as we all practiced walking up and down an imaginary staircase, then Greg took everyone who could drive out to the lorry park to teach us how to back up a trailer!

It was very late at night when we eventually arrived in Chelmsford for the Centennial World Scout Jamboree – what an event that was…

AUGUST

50,000 Scouts!! Yes, 50,000!!!!! All in one place and from over 150 different countries around the world! To be involved in an event like this was something truly special. Rather like our time at the school, we were here to teach circus skills rather than perform them. This time we were joined by Ray Grins and Erin Schmall, circus friends of Greg and Ann’s from New York who had been brought in to teach the Scouts full time. This gave us students more time to practise our own skills for our fast approaching final Graduation Showcase (now less than two months away!). Having an extra couple of professional teachers around was great; Ray taught Josie and Hilary how to do whip-cracking and Erin shared with us some of her improvisation and clowning skills. During the Scouting event we were to hold a student showcase. These showcases were held every so often during the course and were used as an opportunity for us to try out new ideas and material in front of the teachers and other students.

I was working hard now on trying to free-mount that unicycle – but in all honesty I was feeling that I had hit a brick wall with it. I could do it maybe once out of fifty attempts with absolutely no consistency on progress whatsoever. Hardly ready for “primetime” and as for actually being able to juggle once I’d actually got up there – it just wasn’t happening. Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe it!! Much cursing and spitting, but I was determined to master it as I had a plan for the act as a whole which I was going to try out at the student showcase.

So – how did it go? Well, OK for a first attempt at a new act! I couldn’t get on the unicycle without a lot of help from Greg; the juggling was brief to say the least and I nearly gave my volunteer from the audience a heart attack but apart from that, not too bad. At least I knew that the basic structure worked, and as I collapsed in a heap at the end, Ann handed me a can of cider and a cigarette and told me she liked it!!! Reward-based teaching - Hurrah!!! Obviously I had a lot of work to do though before it could go in front of a real audience! Time, however, was not on my side. Ann and Greg decided that I should perform my act again on the last night of the Jamboree, when we were to put on a proper circus show for all the Scouts we had worked with over the last two weeks. Now this would have been fine – but I was worried. All the other acts where either highly polished stuff we’d been doing for weeks or professional teacher’s acts. The comedy stuff in my act I was just about getting away with but that was no good at all if I couldn’t do the final trick – which at this point, I couldn’t. I didn’t sleep the night before and continued to worry about it all day before the show. In the end I asked Greg to announce it as a work in progress which took the pressure off somewhat, and once again I managed to blag it!!!!

As the Jamboree came to an end, we said goodbye to Ray and Erin and we spent an afternoon of fun swimming in the huge scuba-diving pools that had been set up near our tent. It was all fun and games until it started getting cold and as I tried to escape back to the warmth of my shed my so-called friends and fellow students felt that it would be highly amusing to keep throwing me back in the pool. Ha –de-ha, ha –I think my lips actually turned blue!

Hypothermia dealt with, our next jump took us to Lichfield in Staffordshire. Here we were joined by another visitor to ACA. This time it was another friend of Greg’s, the world-famous Alexandre “Sasha” Frishe from Russia, a brilliant and fabulously inspiring performer who had graduated from the real Moscow State Circus School and been their solo clown and ringmaster for many years. He watched our shows and gave us some great advice on our performances, it truly was an honour to have him with us – and he liked our British Yorkshire Puddings!! The weather that week in Lichfield was fantastic – hot and sunny everyday putting everyone in a great mood and making the “CircusCleaners.com” act an absolute joy to perform. We even managed to get in a skiing trip to the Tamworth Snowdome where we all benefited from Greg’s expertise as a professional ski instructor and had a snowball fight in the car-park – in August!! The pull-down at the end of our stay here was the best so far as we were accompanied by a live music concert going on in the field next door featuring hits from ABBA and The Eagles!!

We were on the road again, this time to the Northampton Balloon Festival. It was here that I was to perform my unicycling act in it’s entirety to a real audience for the first time. I had been practising hard, but I was still very shaky on the free-mount and the juggling was still hit and miss. Greg and Ann had told the students fairly early on in the course that they always sent student acts out when they felt they where ready even if the student didn’t think they were. And they are completely right to do this. The only way your act is going to improve is by doing it in front of an audience. I was still incredibly nervous though and it was only after doing my act in pretty much every show that weekend that I started to relax a little and really start to enjoy it.

Our next jump was the most dramatic of all though it wasn’t until most of us had reached our destination that we found this out. We were on our way back Up North again to Stockton-on-Tees. I managed to get Lynford the Van with Steph’s caravan to Stockton in one piece – hurray! On arrival, however, we discovered that the “Geriatric Unit” had not arrived. It was stuck at Barton Services on the A1 with a shredded tyre. Not the end of the World as I ,and my fellow geriatrics Josie and Daniel, simply took a van to our stricken home and spent the night living in the service station. This service station would not have looked out of place in a dodgy B-movie where everyone gets chopped up by a lunatic with a big axe but we had a very pleasant evening there, cooking a good meal and having rather a lot to drink. We even got out of putting up the tent as we were not rescued until quite late the following afternoon.

This was not the end of the drama I speak of though! A little later into the evening we heard that our props trailer had come off the back of the seating truck as it was being driven up the A1 at 60mph. Not good, but thankfully no-one was hurt. I started to panic a little as all my unicycles and props for my act were in that trailer – what state would they be in? As a member of the props team, I accompanied Greg and Elias on the two hour journey to the scrap yard just north of Chesterfield to survey the damage and retrieve our props from what was left of the trailer. It was in a bit of a mess. A huge hole was in it at one end and a stilt was sticking out of the roof were it had been forced through by the impact of the crash. As the straps holding it all together were removed so we could get inside, the whole thing pretty much fell apart. Remarkably though, all the props inside were intact! The only casualties were the boxes that had been used to store the smaller props and rigging in. I put this stroke of good fortune down to the spectacular job the props team (Karin Petter, Hilary and myself) had done in securing all the really heavy stuff to the inside frame of the trailer, all of which was still attached! We returned back to the circus at 2am in the morning! After a full days training, all the students piled back into the van and went back to Chesterfield to help load the seating from our incapacitated seating truck to a flat-bed we had on loan from Zippo’s. By the time we got back to the circus and erected the rescued seating it was nearly 4am. I have never been so tired in my life! We were then up at 9am for our first show at 11am!!!

For all the drama’s getting here, I think we did some of our best performances in Stockton. The audiences were great and by now many of the students had got their solo acts into the show. Our next drama was just around the corner though as my fellow clown, Alex, fell off his rola-bola stack during a performance of his comedy chef act and broke his wrist! He had to spend two days in the hospital before going home for a couple of weeks to re-cooperate. With Alex out of action and Hilary off on holiday for a week I was feeling somewhat devoid of comedy company!

SEPTEMBER

There was, however, one act missing from the show. “CircusCleaners.com” had not been performed since we were in Northampton in the middle of August due to Alex having his arm in plaster! This act was to be in the Showcase, and with Alex’s arm now healed, we had to get it re-rehearsed. Greg’s sadistic streak reared its head once again, as once again he insisted that the only time we could rehearse was early in the morning before the 11am show on the Sunday!! Last time, it had been June – cold, but bearable. Now it was October and once again I found myself on the receiving end of that bucket of water at 8am. Freezing does not start to describe the experience. Max even got up early to watch our suffering, constantly commentating on how glad he was not to be a clown! At least the act was back in and the show all the better for it!!

My practising had paid off! I could pretty much free-mount my unicycle every other attempt now. As a reward to myself, I bought myself a new unicycle. It was beautiful! Just one problem, it was a good half a foot higher than my old one and I couldn’t get on it!!! Aaarrrgghhh!!! Determined to use it though, I swapped the seat from the old unicycle onto the new one and practised until my thighs were on fire!!

Next stop, Bexley Heath and the Graduation Showcase!!! My timing could not have been worse!! What an idiot! On the way to Bexley Heath, where we were to meet with the main show, I managed to loose the keys to my bunk-room!! We arrived quite late at night and the last thing anyone really needed was having to deal with the pillock who could not get into her shed! Neil from Zippo’s was a hero though and after much deliberating on how to get in (climbing though windows, angle-grinding the bolt, picking the lock…) he simply took a hammer to the door and knocked out the bottom panel of wood! Genius!!

The pressure was on now!! Just a few days remained before show-time! The aerialists where now practising in Zippo’s Big Top (much bigger and higher than ours) whilst the ground acts worked in our tent. Props were being painted, costumes sewn and sequinned, finishing touches made to sound tracks and routines practised, practised, practised!! Every act had to be run in the main Zippo’s Big Top with a full dress run of the whole show to be done in between Zippo’s public performances. People were stressed on every level and tensions ran high – but it was this stress and tension that moved everything along, and without it I don’t think the show would be anything like as good! Once again the slosh act had to be rehearsed at a most in-convenient time. This time it was at 11pm at night – the coldest ever rehearsal so far and as the other clowns and I stood soaked to the skin and freezing in the ring, it was confirmed in our minds that our teachers were indeed maliciously cruel creatures!!!

The Showcase went brilliantly!!! Everyone was fantastic! The nerves, the stress, the sweat, tears and hypothermia had all paid off! We rocked, and the audience loved it! Because we were such a big group this year the show was long, a little over two hours, but for us it seemed to fly by and all too soon it was over. I was delighted at how my acts had gone, and even more delighted that so many of my friends and family had made the trip to Bexley to support me.

The day after, we were all given a well deserved day off. Officially, the course was now over, but we were all having so much fun that most of us decided to stay on with the Circus for the final two gigs of the season. After all the circus had now become a way of life, and we all wanted to put off returning to the real world for as long as possible!

We spent the next week back at the Circus Headquarters in Newbury, where we commuted to our tent at the Newbury Showground everyday. Our Big Top was playing host to event companies displaying their wares at the annual Showman’s Show. When the event was over, we had the tent to ourselves again to continue our training. As the pressure was now off, we had an opportunity to have a go at some of the skills we hadn’t really touched on during the course. As I had concentrated all year on clowning and comedy, I had the chance now to have a go at some aerial stuff. The swinging trapeze, although the most terrifying, was the most fun and as I swung back and forth, I couldn’t help squealing like five year old in a playground and, as Ann would say, “grinning like a monkey”! I had another go at spinning on the web rope, which was fine until I couldn’t stop spinning and almost threw-up all over Greg. I even got a go at the aerial Cradle, hanging off Ian’s arms and shoulders ten feet above the ground – he’s so strong and masculine, bless him!!!

The season may have been coming to an end, but the dramas weren’t!! Ian managed to put diesel into a petrol powered transit van, resulting in half the students spending the best part of a day stranded at Chievley Services on the A34 before being rescued by ‘Super Van’, Lynford!!! On arrival at our final ground Lynford decided to overheat. Hilary and I were sitting in the cab when the van started to shake quite violently and what looked like smoke started to pour from the bonnet. Thinking the van was on fire, we didn’t hang about! We leapt out of the cab and succeeded in putting the fear of God into everyone around us! We genuinely thought the thing was going to blow up – sorry gang!

Our final stop of the tour and the season was a week of shows at a garden centre in Sidcup. The tent was erected on a car park, which meant having to use a pneumatic drill to get the stakes in. We performed sixteen shows over four days each one to an almost full house – a most fantastic end to a brilliant season.

To sum up: training, working and living with ACA for the past six months has been a fantastic experience that I will treasure. The tears, tantrums and aching limbs fade into insignificance, for it is the fun we had and the friends I made, the laughs, the jokes and the things I learnt not just about the Circus, but about myself that will stay with me forever. So a big thank you to Greg and Ann. Thank you to my teachers, Zula Jambaa, Marius and Mariana Ionescu and Steph King. And thank you to my friends and fellow students for making my time at ACA some of the best and happiest days of my life.