Les Enfants du Paradis: what to expect at Giffords’ 2023 show

The moon is out. In the dark of the circus tent, the roof sparkles with shining splodges like luminous grains of corn. The air thrums with the sweet scent of popcorn and candyfloss; children – like a butterfly’s wings – change the atmosphere with their small, excited wriggles.

It feels like the edge of the world.

Expectant. Dangerous. Waiting to fall into a different universe of strange bodies doing impossible, clever, astonishing things.

Then – what is this? – a new clown comes on.

(A NEW clown? A NEW CLOWN? What sacrilege is this?)

Dylan and Asia Medini - the skating Medini's in Les Enfants du Paradis (Image: Rachel Louise Brown)He delights the children by playing tunes on fingers that pipe like penny whistles.

But – along with the laughter – there’s unease.

Surely – surely – the only clown in the whole wide world has a red tuft of hair out front and a pet iron called Keef. (Every self-respecting person under the age of 12 knows this.)

OK… No spoilers.

Suffice to tell you that Keef’s ironing days still stretch ahead of him: a laundry basket full of them.

And Keef wouldn’t be Keef without his presser-in-chief, the inimitable (who would imit him, after all?), Tweedy.

Tweedy, Michael Fletcher and Nell O'Hara in Les Enfants du Paradis (Image: Rachel Louise Brown)So relax. Giffords Circus is as magical as ever. The theme, Les Enfants du Paradis, is the usual gentle thread through acts that draw startled breaths from craning audience members. Aerial hoops, skaters, acrobats. Skills relying on bodies and brains that have practised and perfected in ways rarely seen in this century of fakery and illusion. Singing and dancing and musicianship that could carry the show on their own. Simply beautiful.

And Nell, absent but not absent, is there in everything you see.

During the interval we get to talk to Tweedy. ‘Is the ‘Things Go Wrong’ bit really things going wrong?’ I ask. ‘Or is it part of the act?’

‘I did stand on my violin during rehearsals,’ Tweedy says, mournfully.

(A mishap later independently confirmed. ‘We TOLD him to move it. A £200 violin…’)

Full disclosure – I love Giffords.

Right from the first moment.

Last year, we took a huge band of family members to a performance on Minchinhampton Common. The happiness lay a little in treating them; but mostly in hearing called out, ‘And now for the birthday wishes…’

Aerial artiste Alex Michael in Les Enfants du Paradis (Image: Rachel Louise Brown)

NB: Circus Sauce:

If you’ve never been to Giffords’ travelling restaurant, Circus Sauce, then correct that mistake. Giffords never does anything by halves; never attempts things it’s not fantastic at. And the restaurant is no exception.

The website lists the menu at each venue (plus, dietary requirements are catered for without problem). We dined off roast parsnip soup with goats’ cheese cannoli; lamb rump with Irish stew cobbler, parsley and cabbage (lion’s mane mushroom ‘steak’ – plucked from the Slad Valley – and bean cobbler for veggie options); then a triumphant white chocolate rice pudding with rhubarb doughnuts.

The flavours were knock-out; genuinely one of the best meals I’ve eaten, travelling or otherwise.

• Les Enfants du Paradis is touring the Cotswolds and other venues from April to October, 2023, giffordscircus.com