AUDACIOUS Mr ASTLEY
Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) 1st to 27th August
In this 250th Anniversary year of the world’s first circus performance, and surrounded in Edinburgh by shows in many styles of circus presentation, who better to tell how the art form began than the ‘father’ of the modern circus, Philip Astley himself?
Swapping his red tail-coat and top hat for the uniform and wig of a 1760s hussar, and his microphone for a playwright’s pen, modern-day ringmaster, circus personality and actor Chris Barltrop brings Astley to vivid, cantankerous larger-than-life to tell his own
tale, accompanied by contemporary music and soundscapes.
Barltrop has painstakingly researched, written and performs to tell Astley’s story ‘at first hand’. A unique account, a view of the dawn of the Classical circus by a respected
life-long exponent who draws on his insider knowledge of circuses and their owners in a fascinating and highly entertaining presentation.
Audacious Mr Astley dissolves the myths to relate how the circus really began.
www.pleasance.co.uk/event/audacious-mr-astley#overview / 0131 556 6550
