The circus family gets back on the road

Photographs by Rachel Louise Brown For The Observer

The co-founder of Giffords Circus, Nell Stroud, grew up in Oxford and had a place at the university when she took a gap year to work as a drudge at Circus Flora in St Louis, Missouri; it changed the course of her life. She finished her degree but continued to work at circuses worldwide, including in China and Germany, until she met Toti Gifford, a farmer’s son. They had twins, and a shared dream to create a village green circus. They bought a round white tent from a newspaper small ad; converted a showman’s wagon to live in; and advertised for performers in the Stage. 

Since then, Giffords has entertained more than a million people across southern England, showcasing talent from across the world, including France, Hungary, Romania, and Russia. Nell and Toti divorced, but the circus kept going. Nell died of cancer in 2019 and an acrimonious succession battle over the direction of the circus began when former accountant Guy James assumed control as CEO and, against Nell’s stated wishes, blocked the involvement of family and long-term performers in the running of Giffords. The dispute came to a head in May last year when James agreed to step down and Toti Gifford returned to run the show.  

Speaking to The Observer as the circus brought its new season to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, Toti looked back to Giffords’ origins, recalling how he realised he wasn’t going “to get the circus out of Nell” and so “built one for her”. Their first booking? At the Hay festival in 2000, Nell had been invited to talk about her memoir, Josser: The Secret Life of a Circus Girl. Instead, they took their wagon, the tiny tent, plus a juggler, a musician and an acrobat and put on a show.

Today the show is grander than its bootstrap beginnings. The maroon hand-painted wagons are once again travelling across the south-west, expanding beyond the Cotswolds with shows at sites including Chiswick House in London, before returning to Fennells Farm, Stroud, for a finale from 10-27 September.

When I ask Toti about the succession battle, he praises his new wife, Alice Gifford, for her support and how, without her, he would not have been able to get Giffords back on the road. It is something that associate director and tour manager Mikey Fletcher also touches on. “This year feels special. Having that family connection again has brought something back. It’s called Giffords for a reason.”

The theme of this year’s show, Waterfield, inspired by the beauty of the Cotswolds and the animal characters of classic English children’s literature, was chosen by Nell and Toti’s children, Red and Cecil. Put together by Cal McCrystal, director for the 15th successive year, it sees costumed performers all embodying woodland creatures. Band leader Joe Pickering leads Odette the Singing Swan and a troupe of grasshoppers, while other performances are soundtracked by a dramatic mix, from T Rex mashups to an acrobatic rendition of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, as sisters Cassidy Vallin and Sydney Wilson, dressed as mantises, tumble through the air on aerial straps and hoop.

This sense of family is something you feel immediately upon arriving at the Giffords site. Toti tells me: “Everyone who comes into the circus is searching for something, and mainly it’s family. It’s a self-picked family. We rely on each other, pull the tent down in the dark, put it up in the rain. We live together, cook together, celebrate together.”

But as in all families, life is not without its challenges. As Toti says “you don’t start something like this for money”. After being refused funding by the bank when they first started, it took many years to break even; he and Nell simply “kept going, year after year”. 

Watching Giffords, there seems to be no separation between the audience and the performer. In theatre, there is a layer of safety, but the circus collapses that. You are close enough to feel the possibility of failure. Nowhere is that more evident than in a performance by the Addis Ababa Troupe, a collective of nine Ethiopian acrobats dressed in salmon-pink leotards to symbolise newts within the woodland family.

Their act unfolds through a series of increasingly daring throws and catches. At one point, a flyer misses his landing. A soft murmur ripples through the audience. He tries again. Another miss. The crowd leans forward as one. The live band holds steady. The flyer is launched once more into the air, suspended for a heartbeat that feels impossibly long – and he lands it. The tent erupts. It is not just applause, but release. The joy of witnessing something hard-won, live and unrepeatable.