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Afternoon Reading: The Victorian Clown: The Circus Memories of James Frowde

Afternoon Reading: The Victorian Clown: The Circus Memories of James Frowde: Episode 2: Tenting & Travelling

The Victorian Clown: The Circus Memories of James Frowde

Episode 2

Episode 2: Tenting & Travelling

Tenting & Travelling

BBC Radio 4 - Afternoon Reading, The Victorian Clown: The Circus Memories of James Frowde, Tenting & TravellingSearch BBC

Frowde remembers performing as a contortionist known as the 'Duke of Limbs'.

Tales of Victorian circus life read by Tony Lidington. Frowde remembers performing as a contortionist known as the 'Duke of Limbs'.

James Frowde's memoirs - taken from the book 'The Victorian Clown' by Jacky Bratton and Ann Featherstone and adapted for radio and performed by Tony Lidington - represent the closest we have to a first-hand, vernacular description of the daily life of a British circus clown in the mid Nineteenth Century. 

At that time, circus people and pantomime artists were on the lowest rung of the cultural ladder, just a step above vagrants and beggars; indeed they were viewed with suspicion and fear by those who aspired or achieved more stable, residential lives. 

Frowde remembers performing as a contortionist known as the 'Duke of Limbs'.

Adapted and read by Tony Lidington.


Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

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Tales of Victorian circus life read by Tony Lidington

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Afternoon Reading

The Victorian Clown: The Circus Memories of James Frowde

Episode 2: Tenting & Travelling

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