| Circus Oz | Milton Keynes Theatre 24 – 27 August 2005
Wed–Sat eves 7.30pm
Thur & Sat mats 2.00pm Suggested minimum age: 6+. Box Office: 0870 060 6652 (booking fee) Founded in 1977, Circus Oz is often credited with being the first contemporary circus in a now significant international industry. As a major innovator in the field of Physical Theatre, the show blends stunts, theatre, music and tongue-in-cheek humour with traditional circus skills. The group specialises in acts of strength, daring and grace combined with comic irreverence. Circus Oz has enjoyed critical acclaim from people of all ages, and incredibly they have performed to over two million people in 26 different countries across five continents to date! |
The Antipodean circus spectacular that took London's Royal Festival Hall by storm arrives in Milton Keynes in August.
 | | Circus Oz |
Formed in 1977, Circus Oz is Australia’s acclaimed contemporary circus, which brings together some of the finest specialist performers to feature high-altitude acrobatics, tightrope walking, wheels on fire, wiry bodies, flying freaks and live music.
As director Stephen Burton says, "We've got the lot really, from BMX routines to traditional flying trapeze, sword swallowing, juggling, tumbling and a human canon ball - quite literally. "You still get all the big circus tricks" he added. "But for us it's much more about creating a meaningful relationship with the audience". Luckily for the audience, Stephen confirmed that this relationship was about clapping and cheering and not joining in the tricks! This can only be a good thing as one of the acts not only swallows swords, he is also capable of squeezing his whole body through the head of a tennis racket! Captain Frodo started performing in his father's magic show at the age of 10 and by 12 was doing escape acts from straight jackets, chains and ropes. He joined Circus Oz in 2004 and now specialises in the swallowing and contortion. And amazingly, as he told us, there's no trickery involved! Captain Frodo, what do you do in the Circus Oz show? Frodo: It's a great ensemble and I do a lot of things but my solo act at the moment is performing sword swallowing and a comedy contortion dislocation act. I'm a man of many talents it looks like! How did you start as a sword swallower? Frodo: I've been performing in side shows and freak shows for the last eight years and only recently joined the circus. But within side shows and carnivals sword swallowing is a very common skill and something that every freak show should have. I first swallowed a sword about eight years ago. Then I joined the Kamikazee Freak Show based in Edinburgh and travelled with an Australian show called the Happy Side Show. Both of them had sword swallowers so I was just doing my contortion stuff - so
this is the first time I've actually been employed as a sword swallower. Does it go right down?
 | | Here we go! |
Frodo: It does go right down inside you yes. What you see is what you get! Right down into your .... Frodo: Right down into your stomach yes, so you shouldn't eat for two hours before the show or the audience get to see what you had for tea that day! Have you had any injuries? Frodo: No. I haven't. But these are dangerous things and not something that someone should just try without supervision. If you do have an injury it can get quite serious. But I'm still here and still performing it so I guess that is proof enough that I haven't had any major injuries just yet! What's dangerous about it too is that once you get past the epiglottis, past where the gag reflex is, then you don't really have any nerves anymore so you get this sort of strange feeling if you do push too hard or aren't ready or you haven't opened
the muscles enough. That's what you've got to learn - to control the muscles down the oesophagus so you can get into your stomach. OK, OK, enough ....! And I thought it was just a trick sword! Frodo: On no - learning is a long process. Talking to other people who do yoga and stuff, it's similar in some ways to the things that they do when they learn how to control parts of the body that you don't normally have control over. For instance, your
gag reflex and the individual muscles down your oesophagus.
 | | Ouch! |
A lot of people think there's some trick involved but if you think about it in hospital they put things down there and food goes down there so it's not that unusual. It's all about discipline then? Frodo: Yes - in the learning process it's very much about discipline and taking it really slow and being sure that you have mastered each step before you go any further. Right - so what's the comedy dislocation act then? Frodo: I squeeze my entire body through the heads of two tennis rackets that I've removed the strings from and that's pretty much it. But it [the act] becomes quite a bit of an arduous journey to get through them! You put your whole body through two tennis rackets? Frodo: Yes - I put my leg through one of them so I'm sort of standing on one leg for most of the act. It's a bit of a knockabout slapstick kind of routine and it's very fun for me and usually the audience is laughing as well so that's good! I think you're one of the most unusual people I've ever spoken to! Frodo: Thanks! I guess that within the circus industry you can't get a better compliment than that. It's the one place in the world where the more different you are, the better you do within the industry. If you're a misfit then you fit perfectly in the circus! Perhaps I should give it a try?! How would you describe the Circus Oz show then?
 | | Circus Oz - very slinky! |
Frodo: I think the main difference between the Circus Oz show and a lot of other contemporary circuses is that in general we don't take ourselves as seriously as some can do. We can see what we do and then laugh at ourselves as well. I'm not sure if it's a Circus Oz thing or maybe it's an Australian thing of always being able to laugh at yourself whilst in the midst of doing something utterly, outrageously strange on stage, and then to just have a wink at the audience and go "I know this is strange but I've spent all this time learning it so let's just see how it goes"! It's great to have the opportunity to rehearse and practise something for as much time as people go and do their office job. And when they see it I guess some of the appeal is that they see something that is so ridiculously hard that you must have spent a lot of time learning something which is in a lot of ways quite useless!
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