The Bastard Child: A New Reading of British Circus History1

In this article the authors propose a new reading of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British circus history. The historical literature on British circus is patchy, surprisingly so since it is the country unequivocally recognised as the birthplace of the modern circus. Two seminal books, Hippisley Coxe's A Seat at the Circus (1951/1980) and Speaight's History of the Circus (1980) promulgate both an ideal of circus ‘purity’ and an anti-theatrical bias. In establishing circus as a discrete field of study, it is perhaps inevitable that what makes circus different from other theatrical activities is more attractive than what is similar. Coxe's statement that circus is an art of actuality, while theatre is an art of illusion, creates a neat distinction that distorts the evidence about the malleability and mutability of circus and its producers. Examining the contexts of its origins, mid-century programming, and venues for circus, the authors re-examine the history of the British circus.