[Music]
[Music]
roll up roll up roll up so of a lifetime
is about to begin
I’ve been an entertainer for getting on
for 45 years it’s a whole lifetime I’m
beginning to feel that at least now I
know something about the business
occasionally take time out even during
the show just to catch the looking
children’s eye on his other than a smile
on adults faces and think what a lucky
guy I happen
[Music]
Gus is a great tradition of living in
the road and I’ve always admired and
envied in a way circus performers who
live full-time in the road so a few
years ago three four years ago now I
decided I was gonna do it myself again
because I lived on the road when I was
young but now I’m doing it full-time and
I won’t go back to bricks and mortar
I love living on the road I like living
on tires and the big lorry which is what
I got and I want to work in the trailer
behind in my home in the lorry with the
dogs and that’s us it is a very romantic
life in the real sense of that word
there’s a sense of risk and danger but
also a great adventure going on in my
life all the time of course it’s
romantic to arrive in the middle of the
night set up and leave in the middle of
the night meaning something special in
their lives for those few days and then
moving on it is romantic I think that’s
part and parcel of the whole thing
[Music]
music is essential in my performance
it’s like the heartbeat of the show one
of the things that people notice about
the show is how it’s sort of fits to the
music
in fact the music I’ve fitted myself to
the music I think all the music’s fitted
itself to me and all started a
particular classic show of course
started with a an old cassette you
remember old cassettes I was walking
along the street in or a little country
road really in Scotland and saw a bit
and on Rajasthan the top of the bay and
it wasn’t actually in the bin it was
just on the top of the bin was a
cassette of the music from the sting not
film I’d seen at the time I’ve seen it
since of course but so I took it and
thought Louis somebody giving me a
present and ever since then I’ve used
that music in that order and the order
of play as it is on the cassette and
it’s fantastically evocative those
ragtime tunes
[Music]
for the last year I’ve been writing a
blog which is an intimate view of my
backstage life in a way and it’s about
not just how the shows go but it’s about
the the way of life of a traveling
entertainer in in Britain today and it’s
got a little quite a lot of following
I’m I won’t say I’m viral but I am quite
popular and I’m a lot of response a lot
of emails from people about it and
that’s lovely it really isn’t about that
one of the great things about living in
a lorry is you can live very cheaply and
I do live very cheaply I’m certainly not
a rich man it’s I don’t do it for the
money I’ve never done anything for the
money I do it for the love and the joy
of it all but having a bit of money in
your pocket is of course very useful and
it’s been you know winters are hard
because there’s not a lot coming in and
so I was writing about it in my blog
last winter and was mentioning how much
I was living on I can’t believe it now
when I think about it but I was I was
living on 20 grid a week which isn’t a
lot of money including the dog thing and
I was writing about how I did it and a
couple of days later in the post came
this envelope and I opened it and there
was a card anonymous all the words on
the car began with the letter hey
audacious acrobatic activities and
amazing aerial antics always avoiding
ambulances and inside the envelope was
fifty quid you can cash unbelievable and
it was a real mystery
and ever since virtually every month
right the way through the winter my
mystery benefactor is sent fifty quid in
cash to me and so thank you he’s been
listening to it
[Music]
I’m gonna carry on balancing on chairs
for all my life in fact I think in some
basement the last moments will be
falling off the Jets and of course I
really admire those wonderful old
performers who carry on right to the end
Tommy Cooper’s obviously I was actually
watching his live performance when he
died and there was something about dying
with the ring of laughter in your ears
that I really loved and I wouldn’t want
to protracted death on a bed somewhere
in the hospital I’d want to fall off or
you know fall over halfway through a
show and the audience think think that
it’s part of the show and the grounded
laughter ringing in your ears as you
depart from this mortal coil and no I
shall retire I shall never retire not
the retiring kind
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
