Nell Gifford - Revision history

Djando: /* Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On */

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‎Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

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‎Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

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‎Image Gallery

Djando: /* The Little Circus That Could */

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‎The Little Circus That Could

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‎The Little Circus That Could

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‎The Little Circus That Could

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‎The Little Circus That Could

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‎The Little Circus That Could

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‎The Little Circus That Could

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 Remission came and went&mdash;twice. In 2018, Yasmine Smart had to come and replace her in the show. Meanwhile, Nell continued to fight and began to consolidate her organization to ensure that, be that as it may, her circus could continue without her; she had no illusions and made her team and her young children aware of the possibility of a bad outcome&mdash;yet she never lost her positive attitude or allowed tragedy to settle in. In 2019, she went on tour as usual, with a brand-new big top, and performed in Giffords Circus’s production of ''Xanadu''.
-Ultimately, Nell Gifford lost her fight against cancer: She passed away on December 8, 2019. She was only forty-five years old. She had been preparing Giffords Circus’s 2020 production, ''The Hooley'', which marked the twentieth anniversary of her circus’s adventure&mdash;sadly, an anniversary she was not allowed to celebrate. Her passing was a tragic loss to many&mdash;her family and her friends as well as her audiences&mdash;and it was widely commented by the English medias, which saluted Nell’s remarkable achievements and her unique and extraordinary personality.
+[[File:Giffords_Funeral.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Nell's Last Voyage (2020)]]Ultimately, Nell Gifford lost her fight against cancer: She passed away on December 8, 2019. She was only forty-five years old. She had been preparing Giffords Circus’s 2020 production, ''The Hooley'', which marked the twentieth anniversary of her circus’s adventure&mdash;sadly, an anniversary she was not allowed to celebrate. Her passing was a tragic loss to many&mdash;her family and her friends as well as her audiences&mdash;and it was widely commented by the English medias, which saluted Nell’s remarkable achievements and her unique and extraordinary personality.
 Nell Gifford’s funeral was held on January 13, 2020, at the Gloucester Cathedral, where her white coffin was brought to the church on a white hearse led by a couple of white-harnessed grays. More than 1,200 participants attended the ceremony, friends, colleagues and admirers, including many personalities of the arts&mdash;among whom the actress Helena Bonham Carter, who read Prospero's farewell speech from Shakespeare's ''The Tempest'': "…Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air (…) We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep…"

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 ===Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On===
-[[File:Nell_Gifford_and_Red.jpg|thumb|400px|left|Cecil and Nell Gifford (2019)]]Yet, if her circus and her children provided Nell with all the emotional comforts she needed, her marriage, on the other hand, was falling apart. She and Toti eventually divorced in 2015. As if to make matters worse, soon after, that very same year, Nell was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ever the positive, strong-willed woman, Nell decided to fight the disease without leaving her circus out of sight. She continued tending to it between chemo sessions, finding solace in her work and comfort in the warmth of her living wagon.
+[[File:Nell_Gifford_and_Red.jpg|thumb|400px|left|Cecil and Nell Gifford (2019)]]Nell Gifford lived the circus life she had dreamt for herself, preparing the next season in her and Toti’s farm in the Costwolds, and living the rest of the year the nomadic existence of traveling entertainers in her living wagon, surrounded by her horses and her company, belonging to one of these magical villages whose only anchor is an itinerant big top. In 2010, she gave birth to twins, Cecil and Red (a boy and a girl), who followed their parents on tour and learned to become true circus kids.
 Remission came and went&mdash;twice. In 2018, Yasmine Smart had to come and replace her in the show. Meanwhile, Nell continued to fight and began to consolidate her organization to ensure that, be that as it may, her circus could continue without her; she had no illusions and made her team and her young children aware of the possibility of a bad outcome&mdash;yet she never lost her positive attitude or allowed tragedy to settle in. In 2019, she went on tour as usual, with a brand-new big top, and performed in Giffords Circus’s production of ''Xanadu''.

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 File:Nell_Gifford_and_Red.jpg|Nell and Cecil Gifford (2019)
 File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|Giffords Circus (c.2020)
 File:Tweedy.jpg|Tweedy (2023)
 File:Giffords_2023.jpg|''Children of Paradise'' finale (2023)

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 The "little bubble of magic" had hit home. It was not, by far, the United Kingdom’s largest circus, as traditional competitors would have loved to advertise, neither did it have "a galaxy of international talent," but Giffords Circus was intimate, personable, unpretentious, artistically meaningful, and most importantly, it had a style of its own, a distinctive charm, and a soul. It was also, and would remain, audience-friendly&mdash;in that it was entirely conceived with its audience’s pleasure in mind. Nell said she wanted to "bring happiness, imagination and enliven people’s souls," and she had succeeded.
-[[File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|thumb|left|400px|Giffords Circus (c.2020)]]Victoria Lambert, a journalist from ''The Telegraph'', has described the "ritual" of the Giffords Circus experience thus: "That first thrill from hearing the organ music playing invitingly as you park the car and walk, often across a muddy field, to the Big Top. Stopping at the wagon to buy this year’s commemorative rosettes and Emma Bridgewater mugs. Berating yourself for not booking a spot at Circus Sauce, the pop-up café. Then catching sight of the distinctive maroon livery of the wagons with their hand-painted signs, accompanied by a surge of uncomplicated joy from the flap of the bunting, the sound of horses and dogs and harnesses jangling. The smell of the sawdust, the roar of the middle-class Boden-wearing crowd: everywhere is colour and exuberance…”
+Victoria Lambert, a journalist from ''The Telegraph'', has described the "ritual" of the Giffords Circus experience thus: [[File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|thumb|left|400px|Giffords Circus (c.2020)]]"That first thrill from hearing the organ music playing invitingly as you park the car and walk, often across a muddy field, to the Big Top. Stopping at the wagon to buy this year’s commemorative rosettes and Emma Bridgewater mugs. Berating yourself for not booking a spot at Circus Sauce, the pop-up café. Then catching sight of the distinctive maroon livery of the wagons with their hand-painted signs, accompanied by a surge of uncomplicated joy from the flap of the bunting, the sound of horses and dogs and harnesses jangling. The smell of the sawdust, the roar of the middle-class Boden-wearing crowd: everywhere is colour and exuberance…”
 So, in Hay, Giffords Circus had shown that it could enthrall an audience; but more significantly for the enterprise’s survival, it received a lot of media attention. All of a sudden, Gifford Circus was not an unknown entity anymore; it was now on the map and generated a fair amount of curiosity. Its small size made it easier to play to full houses, and full houses, in the eye of any audience, mean success. In the villages where it performed, Giffords Circus would soon become a must-see. Before that, it had to strengthen itself and move from a dream come true to a viable enterprise.

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 ===The Little Circus That Could===
-[[File:Giffords_Backlot.jpg|right|400px|thumb|The original big top (c.2010)]]After a successful opening in Cheltenham in front of friends, family and neighbors, Nell and Toti decided to perform in a few villages on their way to Hay-on-Wye. Not only did Giffords Circus limped from one place to another one or two wagons at a time, but also nobody had ever heard of it and the locals preferred to stay safely at home. The mini tour was a complete disaster, and when the circus eventually reached Hay, there was not a penny left in the bank and everyone was in low spirits.
+[[File:Giffords_Backlot.jpg|right|300px|thumb|The original big top (c.2010)]]After a successful opening in Cheltenham in front of friends, family and neighbors, Nell and Toti decided to perform in a few villages on their way to Hay-on-Wye. Not only did Giffords Circus limped from one place to another one or two wagons at a time, but also nobody had ever heard of it and the locals preferred to stay safely at home. The mini tour was a complete disaster, and when the circus eventually reached Hay, there was not a penny left in the bank and everyone was in low spirits.
 However, Nell was elated to discover that all the festival’s performances of Giffords Circus were already sold out! As it happened, the Circus had become the festival’s most anticipated event, even though no one had ever heard of it&mdash;but apparently, the festival-goers had heard of Nell Stroud, the author, and her circus adventures, and this was enough to trigger their curiosity. When the show finally opened in front of its audience in Hay&mdash;a true paying audience&mdash;it was an unmitigated success!
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 The "little bubble of magic" had hit home. It was not, by far, the United Kingdom’s largest circus, as traditional competitors would have loved to advertise, neither did it have "a galaxy of international talent," but Giffords Circus was intimate, personable, unpretentious, artistically meaningful, and most importantly, it had a style of its own, a distinctive charm, and a soul. It was also, and would remain, audience-friendly&mdash;in that it was entirely conceived with its audience’s pleasure in mind. Nell said she wanted to "bring happiness, imagination and enliven people’s souls," and she had succeeded.
-[[File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Giffords Circus (c.2020)]]Victoria Lambert, a journalist from ''The Telegraph'', has described the "ritual" of the Giffords Circus experience thus: "That first thrill from hearing the organ music playing invitingly as you park the car and walk, often across a muddy field, to the Big Top. Stopping at the wagon to buy this year’s commemorative rosettes and Emma Bridgewater mugs. Berating yourself for not booking a spot at Circus Sauce, the pop-up café. Then catching sight of the distinctive maroon livery of the wagons with their hand-painted signs, accompanied by a surge of uncomplicated joy from the flap of the bunting, the sound of horses and dogs and harnesses jangling. The smell of the sawdust, the roar of the middle-class Boden-wearing crowd: everywhere is colour and exuberance…”
+[[File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|thumb|left|400px|Giffords Circus (c.2020)]]Victoria Lambert, a journalist from ''The Telegraph'', has described the "ritual" of the Giffords Circus experience thus: "That first thrill from hearing the organ music playing invitingly as you park the car and walk, often across a muddy field, to the Big Top. Stopping at the wagon to buy this year’s commemorative rosettes and Emma Bridgewater mugs. Berating yourself for not booking a spot at Circus Sauce, the pop-up café. Then catching sight of the distinctive maroon livery of the wagons with their hand-painted signs, accompanied by a surge of uncomplicated joy from the flap of the bunting, the sound of horses and dogs and harnesses jangling. The smell of the sawdust, the roar of the middle-class Boden-wearing crowd: everywhere is colour and exuberance…”
 So, in Hay, Giffords Circus had shown that it could enthrall an audience; but more significantly for the enterprise’s survival, it received a lot of media attention. All of a sudden, Gifford Circus was not an unknown entity anymore; it was now on the map and generated a fair amount of curiosity. Its small size made it easier to play to full houses, and full houses, in the eye of any audience, mean success. In the villages where it performed, Giffords Circus would soon become a must-see. Before that, it had to strengthen itself and move from a dream come true to a viable enterprise.

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 After a successful opening in Cheltenham in front of friends, family and neighbors, Nell and Toti decided to perform in a few villages on their way to Hay-on-Wye. Not only did Giffords Circus limped from one place to another one or two wagons at a time, but also nobody had ever heard of it and the locals preferred to stay safely at home. The mini tour was a complete disaster, and when the circus eventually reached Hay, there was not a penny left in the bank and everyone was in low spirits.
-[[File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Giffords Circus (c.2020)]]However, Nell was elated to discover that all the festival’s performances of Giffords Circus were already sold out! As it happened, the Circus had become the festival’s most anticipated event, even though no one had ever heard of it&mdash;but apparently, the festival-goers had heard of Nell Stroud, the author, and her circus adventures, and this was enough to trigger their curiosity. When the show finally opened in front of its audience in Hay&mdash;a true paying audience&mdash;it was an unmitigated success!
+[[File:Giffords_Circus_-_dears.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Giffords Circus (c.2020)]]However, Nell was elated to discover that all the festival’s performances of Giffords Circus were already sold out! As it happened, the Circus had become the festival’s most anticipated event, even though no one had ever heard of it&mdash;but apparently, the festival-goers had heard of Nell Stroud, the author, and her circus adventures, and this was enough to trigger their curiosity. When the show finally opened in front of its audience in Hay&mdash;a true paying audience&mdash;it was an unmitigated success!
 The "little bubble of magic" had hit home. It was not, by far, the United Kingdom’s largest circus, as traditional competitors would have loved to advertise, neither did it have "a galaxy of international talent," but Giffords Circus was intimate, personable, unpretentious, artistically meaningful, and most importantly, it had a style of its own, a distinctive charm, and a soul. It was also, and would remain, audience-friendly&mdash;in that it was entirely conceived with its audience’s pleasure in mind. Nell said she wanted to "bring happiness, imagination and enliven people’s souls," and she had succeeded.