A Look at the Whimsical Life of a Traveling Showman | Short Film Showcase

[Music] [Music] Roll up, roll up, roll up! So, 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, I 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 on the road, and I've always admired and envied, in a way, circus performers who live full-time on 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've got. 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 sort of fits to the music. In fact, the music I've fitted myself to; the music I think all the music has fitted itself to me. It all started with a particular classic show, of course. It started with 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 on Rajasthan, the top of the bay.

It wasn't actually in the bin; it was just on the top of the bin. It was a cassette of the music from The Sting—not a film I'd seen at the time; I've seen it since, of course. So, I took it and thought, "Louis, somebody's giving me a present!" 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. It's about not just how the shows go, but it's about the way of life of a traveling entertainer in Britain today, and it's got quite a lot of following. I won't say I'm viral, but I am quite popular, and I'm getting 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; 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.

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 living on 20 quid a week, which isn't a lot of money, including the dog thing. I was writing about how I did it, and a couple of days later in the post came this envelope, and I opened it. Inside was a card, anonymous.

All the words on the card began with the letter "H": audacious acrobatic activities and amazing aerial antics, always avoiding ambulances. Inside the envelope was fifty quid! You can cash! Unbelievable! It was a real mystery, and ever since, virtually every month, right the way through the winter, my mystery benefactor has sent fifty quid in cash to me. 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.

I wouldn't want a 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 thinks that it's part of the show, and the grounded laughter ringing in your ears as you depart from this mortal coil. No, I shall retire! I shall never retire; I'm not the retiring kind.

[Music] You [Music]