We are working on an online archive following Giffords Circus over
the years with photographs, press reviews, audience comments and
video clips. It's a huge, time consuming task (and fun too!) for the
circus office, so keep checking back for updates.

In the mean time enjoy a short history of Giffords Circus:

1999

Toti and Nell Gifford get married and decide to start a circus. They buy a small tent and an old children’s roundabout from the Trade It newspaper. They buy a derelict showman’s wagon from a local farmer and begin to restore it. In December Nell confirms a booking for Hay on Wye Festival 2000. Over the winter Nell and Toti build four wagons, extend the tent and recruit staff and artistes. The set-up of Giffords Circus is financed by Toti’s groundworks business, T.E. Gifford Landscapes, and the proceeds from Nell’s book, ‘Josser’.

2000

Giffords Circus tours from Cheltenham to Hay on Wye. The show starves in Ross and arrives in Hay penniless but wild with enthusiasm and creative energy. The six shows at Hay Festival sell out immediately and are received enthusiastically by the press. Fergal Keane writes that the circus has a great good humour that ‘lingered with me all day’.

The show tours the Cotswolds for another six weeks. It sells out consistently. It is photographed by John Stoddart for Tatler magazine, and is declared by The Sunday Telegraph to be ‘The nation’s most glamorous troupe.’

The circus winters in a farmyard outside Cheltenham and funds are raised from South West Arts to purchase a lighting rig and generator.

2001

The Foot and Mouth crisis erupts. The 18 week tour that has been planned all winter is cancelled and the show tours for seven weeks at the end of the summer.

Once again the show is packed out and well received by the press. It is described by the Times as a ‘space of dreams and miracle...’

The circus is joined by designer Emily Park, ex-Dome acrobat, who creates two beautiful costume sets in the form of lion heads and Renoir-inspired trapeze costumes.

Over the winter, South West Arts provide more funds for the purchase of music equipment and a van. The show rests once again in the farmyard.

2002

We are joined by champion vaulter Rebecca Townsend, Ethiopian jugglers Bibi and Bichu, strong man Oleg Teplitski and acrobalance duo the Circle of Two.

The show is popular and well reviewed. Elle Magazine defines Giffords Circus as ‘the absolutely essential British summer experience.’

This tour starts out in the pouring rain and knee-deep mud. But things soon pick up. Extra entertainment is provided by Corb Lund, Canadian cowboy song writer and band. The show is photographed for Italian Vogue. We win the top Jerwood Circus Award.

At the end of the season Toti purchases a two-acre site for Giffords Circus – Folly Farm. At last the circus has a home.

2003

Giffords Circus embarks on an ambitious national tour. For the first time we take the show further afield to Brighton Circus Festival and London. Parking in one long line on the hard shoulder of the M25 for an hour, crossing the Thames and bumping through the City with our caravans past towering high rise office blocks at dawn, setting up our white tent beside the vast Chinese State Circus in Brighton – 2003 feels like a big step forward for the company and a stretching of our wings.

After London we come back west and tour throughout villages and market towns for the rest of the summer. The show is a sell out.

At the end of the summer we return to Folly Farm, and spend the winter building our production headquarters. Toti and the T.E. Gifford Landscapes team take on a number of exciting landscapes, including the restoration of some medieval ponds. In the workshop Patrick Austen goes through every lorry with a fine tooth comb, and he and Toti put together plans for a new tent and seating. The cycle of consolidation, research, preparation, and rehearsal, which defines the Giffords Circus year, is underway again. The new show, The Pearl, unfolds before our eyes.

2004

40,000 people saw and enjoyed The Pearl. We appear in Vogue magazine, The Times Magazine, Country Life and host the Cotswold Life Business Awards.

In the winter of 2004 Nell and Toti Gifford, along with Graham Thomas (lion tamer) and Nancy Trotter-Landry (photographer) went to Moscow to brave the cold and go on the hunt for new acts for the 2005 show. The trip is successful and a brand new act is recruited. The show takes an even stronger Russian hold when Troupe Tamerlan join us in February and start to train our two new horses, Red and Rooster for their Cossack act.

Joined for the first time by Barry Grantham who brought his inimitable commedia del ‘arte. Barry also taught some of the cast, including Tweedy the art of eccentric dance.

Toti Gifford and Ian Rumbelow work on large-scale landscapes and Patrick Austen is busy in the workshop restoring and maintaining the circus vehicles ready for the next tour.

2005

Throughout the winter Nell conducts auditions, photo-shoots, mass mail outs, and all the paperwork which goes with putting a show on the road. The cast and production team are carefully selected, not just for their talent and skill, but for their passion and commitment to the show. A one week residential workshop takes place run by Angela De Castro, attended by cast, production crew and musicians. The week is full of laughter, talent and creativity.

With Angela De Castro and Barry Grantham Nell designed and created the Cockerel Show. New acts including Troupe Tamerlan and the Trio Slipchenko are joined by our favourites Tweedy and the Duo Marinof to create the popular and widely acclaimed Cockerel Show, full of firey colours and wild cossak riders the Cockerel show was a big hit.

2006

Once again the team of directors consist of Nell, Angela De Castro and Barry Grantham. The show is entitled Joplin! with a theme of 60s psycadellic peace and love. Over 60,000 people enjoyed this full tilt, boogie woogie show celebrating the life and creativity of the great Janis Joplin.

2007

The circus takes a break from touring to develop the Giffords archive and the production headquarters at Folly Farm. Nell and Toti travel to Hungary three times to find new acts as well as Paris and Russia. T.E Gifford Landscapes continues to work on some exciting projects including work in Cornwall during the year.

2008

Dance choreographer Molly Molloy joined by Jonathan Holloway together with Nell work on the production Caravan. Nell discovers a brass band playing on a street corner in Paris and brings them over to create an original score for the show under the direction of Sarah Llewellyn. Nell and Toti select new horses for the show and train them over the winter. We also acquire two Harris hawks, and Ian Rumbelow, with the help of Mike at Cotswold Falconry Centre learns how to train them. Over 30 new costumes, a bear suit, hats by Christine Bec, new and restored wagons by Rocky and sets by Jacqui Harrison and the brass band (who are all artists) – all helped by our sponsors Dorset Cereals to create‘Caravan’.