This winter I was invited to join Thursford Christmas Spectacular for their 45th anniversary season – a whopping run of 82 shows in 6 weeks (!!!!)

Set in the magical surroundings of mechanical organs and fairground carousels, with a cast of 120 professional singers, dancers and musicians, Thursford is the largest Christmas show in the UK, having attracted over 5.8 million visitors to date. This is a good, old school variety show, an extravaganza of non-stop singing, dancing, music and comedy. It’s a fast moving celebration of the festive season, featuring a full orchestra playing live on stage with the performers.

I was assigned an instrumental version of “Viva La Vida” to create a bespoke hula hoop act that mixed silver hoops with LED hoops. The choice of music was quite a challenge for me but once we started the rehearsal period and the violinists joined me on stage, it all came together beautifully and I got used to it. It really is a privilege to perform to a live orchestra every day.

The whole 2 month period (with not one day off for us, circus performers) was very demanding – it took bags of resilience, focus and brain power to keep delivering our best every day, even when we felt tired and in physical pain. Yet, being able to play every day with such a wonderfully mad and talented company, offered great rewards – we became a family, holding, uplifting and supporting each other to deliver grace, joy and beauty.
Thank you to the whole cast, crew and production team at Thursford Christmas Spectacular – you are all amazing and I am proud to have been part of it.
You must be logged in to post a comment.