Giffords Circus

Giffords Circus is a traditional English circus which tours the Cotswolds area every summer.[1]

Established in 2000, Giffords Circus is a small circus company, founded by Nell and Toti Gifford,[2] that tours market towns of the south west. When not on the road the founders concentrate on landscape architecture. Nell was the sister of the designer Emma Bridgewater.

Nell Gifford died on 8 December 2019, aged 46, from cancer.[3] The circus is now managed by her niece Lil Rice.[4]

Tours
  • 2004 – "Pearl"
  • 2006 – "Joplin": with a 1960s theme
  • 2008 – "Caravan": set in a horse fair around 1900
  • 2010 – "Yasmine": inspired by the life of equestrienne Yasmine Smart, who played herself in the production
  • 2011 – "War and Peace": themed around Napoleon's disastrous intrusion into Russia, seen through the eyes of a Russian aristocratic family
  • 2012 – "The Saturday Book"
  • 2013 – "Lucky 13": based on the culture clash resulting from a high art opera- and ballet-themed circus show that is gatecrashed by a rowdy Transylvanian travelling circus[5][6]
  • 2014 – "The Thunders": with the Greek Gods as its theme
  • 2015 – "Moon Songs": blending cultural images of the moon with the story of two young Ethiopian jugglers dreaming of fame
  • 2016 – "The Painted Wagon": centred on a group of 19th-century American homesteaders[7][8][9]
  • 2017 – "Any Port in a Storm": with maritime themes, and telling the story of the circus visiting the 17th-century Spanish court[10]
  • 2018 - "My Beautiful Circus": Celebrating 250 years of the invention of the circus as an art form[11]
  • 2019 - "Xanadu": With a 1960s, hippy, 'Summer of Love' theme[12]
  • 2020 - "The Feast": non-touring show due to the COVID-19 pandemic[4]
  • 2021 - "The Hooley"[4]

References
  1. "Home". Giffords Circus. Retrieved 2018-05-15.
  2. Hughes, Tim (2018-06-14). "Giffords Circus comes to Oxford with all new show". Oxford Mail. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  3. "Giffords Circus co-founder Nell Gifford dies", BBC News, 9 December 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2019
  4. Howell, Madeleine (17 August 2020). "Is it curtains for Britain's touring shows and funfairs – or will they bounce back?". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-09-05. Retrieved 2013-08-26.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. Giffords Program 2013
  7. Pilston, Tom (26 June 2016). "The Painted Wagon Wild West Show – in pictures". The Guardian.
  8. MacAlister, Katherine (2016-06-16). "Giffords is back. But is The Painted Wagon it's [sic] best show yet?". The Oxford Times. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  9. "A Review of the Wondeful Giffords Circus, Gloucestershire". Lewis Loves. 2016-10-29. Retrieved 2017-06-05.
  10. Sutherland, Gill (2017-06-12). "Review: Giffords Circus 2017". Stratford-upon-Avon Herald. Retrieved 2017-06-27.
  11. Singleton, Sarah (2018-09-03). "My Beautiful Circus: the music and magic of Giffords". Swindon Advertiser. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
  12. Billington, Michael (2019-07-02). "Xanadu review – psychedelic circus evokes summer of love". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-08-16.


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