Back on the road again
Cardiff- based NoFit State Circus is touring Wales this month and into the summer. Its artistic director Tom Rack told Jenny White what’s in store
NOFIT State Circus has come a long way since its beginnings in the 1980s as a group of student jugglers. Tom Rack, the company’s artistic director and the last remaining founding member, recalls how he and fellow university juggling club members decided to go on the road staging street shows, cabaret shows and performing at festivals.
They also performed regularly at the Meltdown open mic nights in Chapter, Cardiff, and at miners’ benefit gigs.
“It was a really politically charged time - Margaret Thatcher, Norman’s Tebbit, all of that stuff,” he recalls. “We did Save the GLC rallies - we were young, radical, free spirits, travelling to the festivals, it was a crazy time.”
Eventually they hooked up with a man who owned a big top and became one of the acts on his programme – then, when he went out of business, they got their own big top and steered their own path.
By then they were called NoFit State Circus.
“The name amused us at the time there was the Moscow State Circus and the Chinese State Circus and then there was us,” says Tom. “It was just a bit of a joke, and it stuck.”
The circus, which is headquartered in Splott and tours internationally, has grown far beyond the juggling troupe it was at its inception, delivering high concept shows that are very different from your mainstream circus offering.
“Our style of contemporary circus appeals to children, adults, grandparents - all sorts of people,” says Tom. “There’s something in it for everybody: we make sure that it functions on many different levels in terms of the artistic references and stories that are in there - or you can just enjoy the music and the spectacle.
“It’s not just a succession of traditional circus acts with a remaster introducing them - it’s one coherent show that has a theme, and the acts flow from one into the other. We take the audience on that journey with us, and we have a fantastic live band playing music that drives it like an engine.”
This summer, they are taking two very different shows on the road in Wales and beyond. Their brand-new show BAMBOO premiered last week at the Wye Valley River Festival, where it was warmly received. It travels on to Tywyn, Machynlleth and Newtown this month, and then to Amroth and Cardigan in August.
BAMBOO is an innovative new circus production using only bamboo and human bodies, which takes the company back to its outdoor roots.
“We started on the street, but we haven’t made an outdoor show for a number of years,” says Tom. “We have