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Joe Smith and His Waxworks

BBC Radio 4 LW

Tony Lidington

Bill Smith

Joe Smith and His Waxworks: Duck, Love and Eloquence

Duck, Love and Eloquence

BBC Radio 4 - Joe Smith and His Waxworks, Duck, Love and Eloquence

A travelling showman's life. Joe recruits an odd-job man and woos his wife at a dance.

Tony Liddington recalls a travelling showman's fairground life in mid-Victorian England. Uncle Joe recruits an odd-job man he finds working with the donkeys on Yarmouth sands.

An extraordinary account of a showman's life drawn from his memoirs about touring a rough waxworks show around the southern counties of England in the 1840s. Read by Tony Lidington.

Published in 1896, Bill Smith's memoirs recall his early life working for his Uncle Joe, whose touring waxworks show was well-known at country fairs in the south of England in the middle of the 19th century.

It's an extraordinary story of the hardships of an itinerant performer's life in an age when the great historical characters from kings to vagabonds and famous scenes from the Bible, literature and fairy tales were brought to the towns and villages of England by the showmen and storytellers of the travelling fairs.

In today's episode Uncle Joe recruits an odd-job man he finds working with the donkeys on Yarmouth sands, and woos his wife at a country dance.
 

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Short stories about a travelling showman's life in mid-Victorian England.

Short story series. Account of a showman's life drawn from his memoirs about touring a rough waxworks show around the southern counties of England in the 1840s.

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Joe Smith and His Waxworks

Duck, Love and Eloquence

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