[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you very much so in the mid-1980s
when the teenager Mia was sat in his
desk at school I was given a form and
printed at the top of the phone block
letters were the words jig cow not
actually even words jig count job idea
information generator computer-aided
learning the idea was simple I would
fill out the form I will tell the form
my likes my dislikes my hobbies my
interests my academic strengths and
weaknesses the form would then be sent
away to a computer in Oxford which would
then tell me my ideal job so we all sat
there we filled out the forms we gave
them to our teacher we forgot about them
until a couple of weeks later a small
brown envelope was dropped onto my desk
in front of me
inside of which was my mathematically
perfect job funeral director true story
now strangely I had never dreamt of
being a funeral director I mean sure
some people do and I had not but it was
okay that there was something I had
dreamt of being I knew what I wanted to
do with my life I wanted to be a
gentleman juggler okay let’s backtrack
um two years earlier I’m on holiday with
my parents and I see a man doing a show
and he’s a juggler and he’s funny and I
become his biggest fan I go to every
single show I sit in the front row I
love him and then after a few days a
week and a half I start to realize maybe
I don’t want to be his biggest fan maybe
I want to be him so the moment I get
back home
from our holiday I go to the pet shop at
the end of our street and I buy three
rubber dog balls and I start teaching
myself to juggle and at the same time I
start teaching myself about the history
of my newfound art form I start learning
about all the different kinds of juggler
that existed back in the heyday of Music
Hall and variety and it’s true to say
that back then there were as many
different kinds of juggler as these days
there were different kinds of singer or
comedian
there were clown jugglers comedy
jugglers sports jugglers military
jugglers salon jugglers vegetable
jugglers foot jugglers but the ones that
caught my eye were the gentlemen
jugglers cool dapper Playboy’s who
performed feats of dexterity with the
kinds of objects that a gentleman of the
time might encounter on a night out so
hats and canes bottles and glasses Oh
fully laden dining tables I knew that I
wanted to be a professional juggler and
I did not tell my parents they assumed
it was a silly phase just a hobby I
carried on working hard at school but I
knew that I wanted to be a juggler I
went to college I studied child
psychology but still I wanted to be a
juggler when I finally left college I
told my parents what I wanted to do with
my life and they were and continue to be
less than thrilled I signed on the doll
I claimed unemployment benefit and for
six months I lied about looking for work
I was not looking for work but I was
learning a trade every morning I would
get up I would jump on my unicycle and
cycled down to the local park find a
secluded corner and practice my tricks
until it got dark then I would hop back
on the unicycle and ride home and as I
wrote home I would ponder the question
that had begun to haunt me where in the
late-1980s does a juggler work
I mean all the musicals and variety
theaters had long since closed light
entertainment was being kicked out the
back door by the hot young upstarts of
alternative comedy circuses were as
unfashionable as they would ever be it
wouldn’t matter how good I might get if
there was nowhere for me to work I was
doomed it was a Sunday afternoon in a
South London Sports Centre a place where
once a week jugglers would gather to
share tricks and hang out my friend Dave
another juggler he mentioned to me that
Covent Garden Market in the West End
just across the street in fact were
holding auditions and if you passed the
audition you would get a busking license
which meant you could do shows on the
street I was there first thing Monday
morning standing under the portico of
st. Paul’s Church West Piazza Covent
Garden prop bag in hand I strode out
onto the cobblestones in front of a
handful of disinterested tourists and
the suspicious gazes of the other
performers and I did something vaguely
approximating a show I made 16 pounds
but more importantly I passed my
audition I got my busking licence and
that was it there was no going back I’d
been accepted into a secret Club that I
have never left I had found my family an
international community of professional
street performers hustlers and pirates
ladies and gentlemen people who had
travelled the same road as me without an
idea burning in their hearts that had
led them to the streets the cobblestones
the p-axis the new variety theatres
escapologists break dancers magicians
acrobats and jugglers all sharing a
pitch working hard to make a modest
living and hone their craft battling the
drizzle the French school parties the
drunks in pursuit of a round of applause
a big laugh and some money in the Hat I
worked hard and while I worked I
continued to learn more about the
history of my art
I started to really enjoy the idea of
being part of a lineage of performers I
started to see part of my job as debater
to find something old and forgotten
about to blow the dust of it give it a
shine give it a twist show people and
then pass it along to the next performer
to come along because the language of
circus is passed down through members of
often unrelated families let me explain
this is a cigar box these are called
cigar boxes because they are boxes in
which you put cigars am i losing anybody
they’re just empty wooden boxes and
jugglers do tricks with them and the
reason that jugglers do tricks with them
is that a hundred or so years ago if you
were to involve DeVille performer
whatever town you would roll into you
could go to the cigar store they would
be happy to give you their old thrown
out boxes and if you could do something
cool with those boxes you had free props
for life and jugglers did learn to do
something cool with the bosses let’s
take a look so this is WC Fields the
great American comedian but of course
before he was a film star who was
internationally known as a juggler this
is one of my own personal favorites this
guy’s called Revlon 1958
this is Bella cumin patriarch of the
cremeux circus dynasty an alias
performing side-by-side with his son
Chris primo and then Chris went solo and
became one of the biggest stars in
circus and is still working today and
then this is the American traveling
troupe air jazz and this is when I first
saw cigar boxes watching this exact
footage on the Paul Daniels magic show
on a Saturday night on the BBC of I am
dressed slightly better and then that
brings us to me doing the same tricks
handed down by those performers it’s
interesting it’s interesting I just
showed you the exact same tricks you’d
already seen several times on the screen
but when you see something live you feel
the urge to clap there might be a lesson
in that somewhere I’d like to show you
one more quick trick if I may with the
boxes it’s one of my favorite tricks and
it involves eight boxes it also involves
a cigar and a glass of wine because I am
a gentleman juggler let’s give this a go
you might turn or clap that wasn’t a
trick that was the easy part
this is the hard
[Music]
[Applause]
so Covent Garden Market had became my
office five days a week for more than 15
years I had to successfully answer the
question where does the juggler work but
now I had a new question where else can
a juggler work I paid my dues it was
time to spread my wings and find all the
other places that I could do my act and
this time if those places didn’t exist I
would make them happen just in the same
way that a street performers pitch is
only a street corner until a busker
decides to turn it into a theater so I
found the countries that still had
variety circuits I went and I worked in
their theaters when I came home there
was a resurgence in burlesque so I
helped to make it a revival in cabaret
and variety as well I noticed there were
no great big West End theatre variety
shows the way they used to be so I took
a gamble I called in some favors and I
did some filling a West End theatre with
the stars of cabaret and street
performance alongside some of the the
legends that inspired me to get into
this in the first place people like Paul
Daniels there are no good variety shows
on TV and no no no no we do not count
those TV shiny flawed talent shows
slaughterhouses
but it’s okay because I could make my
own put it on YouTube get a global
audience for free I started to think
like a busker in everything I did
ignore the gatekeepers just hustle find
the pitches work the crowds make a
living and be the artist I always wanted
to be and yes embrace the madness of
being a variety star in a country that
doesn’t think it has any variety because
the bottom line is this ladies and
gentlemen what I do might seem quite
complicated and sometimes it is but at
its heart it is as simple as it is
timeless my job my life’s work is to
show you something live before your very
eyes that you have never seen before
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you very much so in the mid-1980s
when the teenager Mia was sat in his
desk at school I was given a form and
printed at the top of the phone block
letters were the words jig cow not
actually even words jig count job idea
information generator computer-aided
learning the idea was simple I would
fill out the form I will tell the form
my likes my dislikes my hobbies my
interests my academic strengths and
weaknesses the form would then be sent
away to a computer in Oxford which would
then tell me my ideal job so we all sat
there we filled out the forms we gave
them to our teacher we forgot about them
until a couple of weeks later a small
brown envelope was dropped onto my desk
in front of me
inside of which was my mathematically
perfect job funeral director true story
now strangely I had never dreamt of
being a funeral director I mean sure
some people do and I had not but it was
okay that there was something I had
dreamt of being I knew what I wanted to
do with my life I wanted to be a
gentleman juggler okay let’s backtrack
um two years earlier I’m on holiday with
my parents and I see a man doing a show
and he’s a juggler and he’s funny and I
become his biggest fan I go to every
single show I sit in the front row I
love him and then after a few days a
week and a half I start to realize maybe
I don’t want to be his biggest fan maybe
I want to be him so the moment I get
back home
from our holiday I go to the pet shop at
the end of our street and I buy three
rubber dog balls and I start teaching
myself to juggle and at the same time I
start teaching myself about the history
of my newfound art form I start learning
about all the different kinds of juggler
that existed back in the heyday of Music
Hall and variety and it’s true to say
that back then there were as many
different kinds of juggler as these days
there were different kinds of singer or
comedian
there were clown jugglers comedy
jugglers sports jugglers military
jugglers salon jugglers vegetable
jugglers foot jugglers but the ones that
caught my eye were the gentlemen
jugglers cool dapper Playboy’s who
performed feats of dexterity with the
kinds of objects that a gentleman of the
time might encounter on a night out so
hats and canes bottles and glasses Oh
fully laden dining tables I knew that I
wanted to be a professional juggler and
I did not tell my parents they assumed
it was a silly phase just a hobby I
carried on working hard at school but I
knew that I wanted to be a juggler I
went to college I studied child
psychology but still I wanted to be a
juggler when I finally left college I
told my parents what I wanted to do with
my life and they were and continue to be
less than thrilled I signed on the doll
I claimed unemployment benefit and for
six months I lied about looking for work
I was not looking for work but I was
learning a trade every morning I would
get up I would jump on my unicycle and
cycled down to the local park find a
secluded corner and practice my tricks
until it got dark then I would hop back
on the unicycle and ride home and as I
wrote home I would ponder the question
that had begun to haunt me where in the
late-1980s does a juggler work
I mean all the musicals and variety
theaters had long since closed light
entertainment was being kicked out the
back door by the hot young upstarts of
alternative comedy circuses were as
unfashionable as they would ever be it
wouldn’t matter how good I might get if
there was nowhere for me to work I was
doomed it was a Sunday afternoon in a
South London Sports Centre a place where
once a week jugglers would gather to
share tricks and hang out my friend Dave
another juggler he mentioned to me that
Covent Garden Market in the West End
just across the street in fact were
holding auditions and if you passed the
audition you would get a busking license
which meant you could do shows on the
street I was there first thing Monday
morning standing under the portico of
st. Paul’s Church West Piazza Covent
Garden prop bag in hand I strode out
onto the cobblestones in front of a
handful of disinterested tourists and
the suspicious gazes of the other
performers and I did something vaguely
approximating a show I made 16 pounds
but more importantly I passed my
audition I got my busking licence and
that was it there was no going back I’d
been accepted into a secret Club that I
have never left I had found my family an
international community of professional
street performers hustlers and pirates
ladies and gentlemen people who had
travelled the same road as me without an
idea burning in their hearts that had
led them to the streets the cobblestones
the p-axis the new variety theatres
escapologists break dancers magicians
acrobats and jugglers all sharing a
pitch working hard to make a modest
living and hone their craft battling the
drizzle the French school parties the
drunks in pursuit of a round of applause
a big laugh and some money in the Hat I
worked hard and while I worked I
continued to learn more about the
history of my art
I started to really enjoy the idea of
being part of a lineage of performers I
started to see part of my job as debater
to find something old and forgotten
about to blow the dust of it give it a
shine give it a twist show people and
then pass it along to the next performer
to come along because the language of
circus is passed down through members of
often unrelated families let me explain
this is a cigar box these are called
cigar boxes because they are boxes in
which you put cigars am i losing anybody
they’re just empty wooden boxes and
jugglers do tricks with them and the
reason that jugglers do tricks with them
is that a hundred or so years ago if you
were to involve DeVille performer
whatever town you would roll into you
could go to the cigar store they would
be happy to give you their old thrown
out boxes and if you could do something
cool with those boxes you had free props
for life and jugglers did learn to do
something cool with the bosses let’s
take a look so this is WC Fields the
great American comedian but of course
before he was a film star who was
internationally known as a juggler this
is one of my own personal favorites this
guy’s called Revlon 1958
this is Bella cumin patriarch of the
cremeux circus dynasty an alias
performing side-by-side with his son
Chris primo and then Chris went solo and
became one of the biggest stars in
circus and is still working today and
then this is the American traveling
troupe air jazz and this is when I first
saw cigar boxes watching this exact
footage on the Paul Daniels magic show
on a Saturday night on the BBC of I am
dressed slightly better and then that
brings us to me doing the same tricks
handed down by those performers it’s
interesting it’s interesting I just
showed you the exact same tricks you’d
already seen several times on the screen
but when you see something live you feel
the urge to clap there might be a lesson
in that somewhere I’d like to show you
one more quick trick if I may with the
boxes it’s one of my favorite tricks and
it involves eight boxes it also involves
a cigar and a glass of wine because I am
a gentleman juggler let’s give this a go
you might turn or clap that wasn’t a
trick that was the easy part
this is the hard
[Music]
[Applause]
so Covent Garden Market had became my
office five days a week for more than 15
years I had to successfully answer the
question where does the juggler work but
now I had a new question where else can
a juggler work I paid my dues it was
time to spread my wings and find all the
other places that I could do my act and
this time if those places didn’t exist I
would make them happen just in the same
way that a street performers pitch is
only a street corner until a busker
decides to turn it into a theater so I
found the countries that still had
variety circuits I went and I worked in
their theaters when I came home there
was a resurgence in burlesque so I
helped to make it a revival in cabaret
and variety as well I noticed there were
no great big West End theatre variety
shows the way they used to be so I took
a gamble I called in some favors and I
did some filling a West End theatre with
the stars of cabaret and street
performance alongside some of the the
legends that inspired me to get into
this in the first place people like Paul
Daniels there are no good variety shows
on TV and no no no no we do not count
those TV shiny flawed talent shows
slaughterhouses
but it’s okay because I could make my
own put it on YouTube get a global
audience for free I started to think
like a busker in everything I did
ignore the gatekeepers just hustle find
the pitches work the crowds make a
living and be the artist I always wanted
to be and yes embrace the madness of
being a variety star in a country that
doesn’t think it has any variety because
the bottom line is this ladies and
gentlemen what I do might seem quite
complicated and sometimes it is but at
its heart it is as simple as it is
timeless my job my life’s work is to
show you something live before your very
eyes that you have never seen before
[Applause]
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