Review from: Waterloo Millennium Green, London; 5th June 2025
Gawky, bespectacled Sam Goodburn looks nothing like the clichéd image of a circus artist, but a circus artist he is and an exceptionally fine one at that. Neither born into a circus nor from a circus school, Sam is a self-taught unicyclist who, just over a decade ago, aged 19, joined Circus Zyair after winning the UK freestyle unicycle championship and stepped into the clown role when the previous act suddenly left.
Now, Sam, a fan of small tents and cosy shows, has teamed up with another fan and another Sam – Sam Morley, an experienced touring technician – to create Circus Piddly, which is in its first year of touring. Piddly it is in size, but great in spirit, silliness and skill. Performers and crew total five. Juggernauts aren’t needed to transport the big top, a transit or two and a trailer will do the job (though the narrow, raked, bench seating accommodates 250 people).
The white tent is pitched in Waterloo by the Old Vic Theatre, just a stone’s throw from the field where Astley presented equestrian feats that led to him creating the first ever circus. Fortunately, it more of less fits on a postage stamp, which is just as well since Millennium Green is an undulating pocket-sized park.
The audience almost fills the 250-capacity little top on this damp day, as a man in a red boilersuit and white bobble hat at the top of a king pole is seemingly taking measures to stop rain coming in. As he works, he drops a yellow hi-vis. Goodburn (for it is our star), signals to a young lad to throw it up to him, and the chaos and fun begins. On the third try, moving lower down the king pole each attempt, he manages to grab hold of the enthusiastically flung hi-vis and, at Goodburn’s behest and of their own volition, the crowd applauds the lad. A moment later sees Goodburn trying to repair a broken biscuit with the help of two volunteers and a square of gaffer tape. We quickly appreciate that the affable Goodburn is genuine in his appreciation of his volunteers and generous in his giving of biscuits.
Having introduced his minimal crew, Goodburn places a custard cream biscuit on his toe, gives his foot a lackadaisical flick and catches the custard cream in his mouth. It’s a fabulous trick that is easy for audience members to relate to, as is balancing an extended tape measure – also found in his boilersuit pocket – on his nose. A quick sequence of pulling hats out of rabbits consolidates his credentials as an able and witty performer.
Goodburn’s stage manager and sidekick, Rosa Autio, has a playful interlude with a flip-top bin that propels a biscuit – like a Circus Piddly variation of the human cannonball act – for a volunteer to try and catch.
Biscuits are a recurring motif through the show. A little later, Goodburn, who is rocking back on his unicycle in boxer shorts with a big yellow smiley on the backside, bribes a volunteer with a biscuit, inserted straight into the mouth, to put his trousers over his foot as he lifts a leg off the pedal. As the volunteer attempts to do so, Goodburn adds biscuit upon biscuit to the one already in her mouth. Mouth stuffed full of biscuits the volunteer departs and Goodburn, still rocking, manages to pull up the trousers before triumphantly riding around.
It’s an impressive unicycling trick in itself; the play with biscuits elevates it to a superb one.
Disposing of the unicycle for the time being, Goodburn takes five balls for a speedy juggling routine to Dave Brubeck’s Take Five that includes a pirouette whilst juggling, then he switches to juggle five clubs cleanly.
A middle-aged woman enticed on stage is transformed with a pair of small black ears into an acro-bat and enticed to sit on his shoulders. He then flicks up the unicycle with his feet to hold it and, having gained his gobsmacked volunteer’s consent, hops up on it and starts riding around the small ring whilst she’s still on his shoulders. She’ll dine out on this experience for years!
Plucked by Goodburn from the audience, the next volunteer turns out to be a member of the cast, Sophia Robertson, holder of three Guinness World Records for hula hooping, who spins up to six hoops on her body with exemplary control.
A romantic sax-playing interlude by Tom Goddard heralds a call from Goodburn, seemingly outside the tent, who then spotted in silhouette at its top. Sliding down the canvas, he enters carrying machetes which are swapped for an axe, chainsaw and potato to juggle, after which Goodburn comically mounts then rides an impressive three-metre-high ‘giraffe’ unicycle before juggling fire on it.
Autio now switches from comic stage manager to skilled antipodist. The Finn, who trained at Brussels’ École Superieure des Arts du Cirque, lies on a black, cuboid, inflatable armchair and adroitly spins circular cloths on her hands and feet before juggling a white tube with her feet.
For his final act, Goodburn stretches gaffer tape a couple of metres above the stage from a king pole at one side of the stage to the pole at the other side, so it looks like a tightrope. And then, having attached a gaffer tape safety harness, he climbs the king pole, sets a tentative foot on the tape and proceeds to walk across. It’s an impressive and fitting way to wrap up this seemingly ramshackle but cleverly constructed show.
Writing this review made me aware of just how much unicycling and juggling skill there is in this show but one doesn’t notice at the time since it is wrapped within a performance rather than merely demonstrated. In a masterclass in engaging and working with an audience, it is Goodburn’s affable, self-deprecating personality and clever, gentle wit that is at the show’s core. And biscuits, of course.
£14/£9 concessions
CREDITS
Sam Goodburn – Unicycle and many other things
Rosa Autio – Foot juggling and physical theatre
Sophia Robertson – Hula Hoop
Tom Goddard – Tech and Sax
Ross Fraser and Jack Jennings – Crew
Sam Morley – Producer
