When waiting for the Lord Mayor of Blackpool to arrive and tell us about her show girl days, David was watching a rolling screen of vintage adverts & photos at the back of the stage.
One of them was for a Flea Circus and David asked me about them. I suddenly realised that I wasn’t certain if they were fake or real. It turns out that they could be either, or both!
When scouting around for information, I was surprised to come across a familiar face in an image, one of the spielers from Shazam! Circus of Wonders.
It turned out that this was Jon Marshall, Director of Sideshow Illusions and restorer of the various exhibits. Not only does he have an interesting website, but Cleo the Goldfish Girl has a facebook blog.
Jon was given a Flea Circus as an unexpected present last year and it is now part of the repertoire.
I didn’t know flea circuses could be fake!
Neither did I, until I saw the car move and I immediately thought of magnets.
That Wikipedia page I linked to was quite enlightening.
Professor Jon has a most interesting show. Who was the blackpool poster for?
Flea Circus Research Library, I’ve checked my photos and the only one that features the Flea Circus slide is the one featured in the post below, link here.
As you can only see half the screen it is tantalisingly uninformative! None of us can remember who it was.
Professor Vanessa will have put the slides together, she can be tracked down at Sheffield University.
I’ve looked through my records and there’s a matching “Professor Axel” from Blackpool the slide looks very similar one of the postcards sold on ebay back in 2005.
Other references to Professor Axel in Blackpool.
http://www.showhistory.com/FleaCircuses.html
and
http://www.sideshowworld.com/FleaCircus.html
yes, it would appear to be the same as this one- http://www.sideshowworld.com/FC-Axels1.jpg
Prof Axel it is then.
This is indeed a Prof. Axel Postcard. I have checked my Flea Circus ephemera and I have almost identical cards by Prof. C. Wood, Prof. Brown, and Prof. Axel. They all use identical artwork and all have Blackpool provenance!
In Japan they got a fly circus LOL!
http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/japans-amazing-fly-circus/
That was strange.
I’m surprised the Americans don’t have a roach circus.