A DAD'S LIFE:The best value entertainment I've had in years, writes ADAM BROPHY
MENTION THE circus to parents and you get varying reactions, some of which are bound to be extreme. At one end of the spectrum, you have the curdled milk response. These parents will detour 20km out of their way to avoid a big top and the demands that accompany its sighting. These parents remember splinters in their arses from scaffolding seating, sloppy lickings by mangy camels and being forced into the ring by a dodgy clown while smiling out into the lights, wondering what will be thrown at them.
These parents have been dragged into the tent before, had their wallets emptied for the privilege and been further robbed for a variety of shonky services and goods inside, flogged by the lure of greasepaint. A fiver for a photo with Spider-Man, anyone? “Yes!” scream the nine kids in your care, and they don’t care that he has a belly to rival Santa and seems to have spent the day drinking porter in his Spidey suit while using the sleeve as an ashtray. Afterwards, we’ll have the €4, two-minute walk on the Shetland pony. These parents would cross the road to give Coco the clown a black eye.
The response of parents at the other end of the spectrum more than makes up for this loathing, however. For them, summer is not summer without the smell of horse poo in hay and the roar of the ringmaster. Their kids have the circus theme hardwired into their circuits and are fed up being dragged from county to county on the trail of the perfect clown shoe. Their kids have eaten so much candyfloss they request carrot sticks for treats.
I was in the former camp until last week, when Fossett’s came to town. Now I’m a fan, and not just on Facebook. First good thing, there were no animals. Thank you. There is nothing entertaining about a bunch of depressed elephants trailing round a too-small-ring like some sort of bereavement support group, tail to trunk, before stumbling drunkenly over a couple of bar stools. Leave it out.
Second good thing, there was a young fella who could bend himself practically inside out. He was great. He made the four small girls I had brought coo and squirm simultaneously.
Other good things included Marion Fossett, ringmistress extraordinaire, who came across like a sort of dominatrix Twink, and a family of Hungarian acrobats, two of whom should really be thinking about the bus pass but instead are still whooping it up in sequins. And why wouldn’t they? This was great fun. This was pantomime and athleticism and showmanship all wrapped up in the bargain basement price of a tenner each. It was the best-value entertainment I’ve had in years.
To put that in perspective, the day before I’d taken part in a triathlon, paid €60 for the privilege of swimming, biking and running in the rain and received nothing in return but a tatty hoodie two sizes too small. Afterwards, I’d forked out another tenner for a plate of onion curry with the occasional morsel of poultry thrown in. But that’s adult entertainment, my responsibility in return for feeding my habits. With the kids I’m usually pillaged to penury by being forced go to to events I’d rather avoid.
Take a town agricultural show, an experience I’ve only had the pleasure of being witness to in recent years. The first hit is a tenner for the adults. For the car park (a vacant, disused field) we’re told. You think, okay, not too bad, but once inside you’d be charged for the air you’re swallowing if some hoor was only cute enough to bag it.
One kid sliding down a blow-up slide three times. That’ll be €3, sir, thanking you very much. Pet of a goat and a hold of a bunny. Let’s call it €3, sir, and not fall out, thanking you very much. A helium-filled balloon, sure I couldn’t go below a fiver for that, sir. Okay, we’ll go to four, but you’re stealing from me, sir.
An agricultural show puts Fossett’s in perspective. The kids sat there for two hours, screamed and laughed, were still and enthralled. All right, I did have to throw in a two-lap pony ride for them at the interval, but at half the price mentioned earlier. We all came out smiling.
Beats the hell out of needing a car loan to sit through Jedward any day.