Saturday was an adventure, a lesson. I arrived at Bignor Church with all my equipment; juggling clubs, paraffin, machetes, glass, and my girlfriend Jess. We walked through the main gate of the church, stalls were everywhere, even in between the graves! A few Romans were having a cigarette near the beer tent and wildflowers were everywhere, being a wildflower festival.
Nick was nowhere to be seen so after a bit of detective work one of the organisers informed me that the huge arena in the centre of the festival was entirely for me. Wow.
I set up promptly and scanned my surroundings once more, it was full of mostly adults over the age of 40, nearly everyone was drunk (even this guy dressed in medieval clothes, bowing whilst smoking to people) so it was easy prey!
I started my act with preparing the glass for walking, making sure it made a lot of noise. This gathered a small flock of bloodthirsty children, I then juggled everything foolishly without slowing down and pacing myself. Knowing what kids are like, I bravely asked them what they wanted to see. By now I had gathered a small crowd of festival goers and the evening was turning out well, despite not having my manager or anyone to work with (manager Luke didn't turn up, hence why he isn't manager any more). One of the children was quite awkward, he wanted me to do a whole array of diabolo tricks that I had never even heard of, the diabolo was the failure of the whole night as I was out of practise. The little people and I created a catchphrase "We didn't see that." which came in handy!
The children wanted everything set on fire! Including me. In the end I had exhausted my supply of skills and I found myself juggling broken pieces of glass whilst walking on glass, a skill never practised before. This was when the first accident happened, I looked down on the glass to find the now-familiar colour of blood in small smeared patches. Remaining professional, I calmly diverted attention to something not bleeding and went to my briefcase.
"Do you want to see something dangerous, and a little bit disgusting? Something I said I wasn't gonna do?"
Of course they said yes, this was when I performed The Human Blockhead with a rotating drill, then a spoon and a nail, some people just couldn't watch but you see I needed to perform the trick to see their reaction to each thing. The spoon was the best as it made them laugh, the drill made them sick, and when I had a spoon in my left nostril and a nail in my right and couldn't find the nail as it was stuck - that made them panic with shock and someone heckled "Don't breathe in!" As usual, the kids loved every minute, one even said rather sensibly "Shouldn't you have given us a warning, like don't try this at home?" so I gave them a warning and had a break. Jess fixed my foot as the Romans had a mock fight in the arena.
It was a nice evening, and as backup Mum brought her friend Steve along just before the sun went down, Steve is a professional fire breather with many years of experience, though he was a bit nervous.
I told him I wanted a trick we had practised about a year ago where I would be juggling and he would envelope me in a fireball, yes, it's dangerous.
So when the time came I calmly walked back into the arena and began juggling fire (with only two torches, as my ex-manager has one and still has it) it was going really well, so I took off my shirt as a signal to Steve to start doing his stuff. Steve walked on and started doing what he had always done for many years, across the world in clubs and various events.
"Blow one off my nose." I said to him, balancing a club on my nose ready for his skills. This was when it went wrong. Another accident.The flame was too big and too powerful, my hair caught fire and my shoulders burned, all I could see was fire and most of the people just stood there. Steve instructed me to roll and tried to pat my head out. "The bucket of water!" I shouted as valuable seconds passed by slowly like treacle through an hourglass. Eventually Mum found the bucket of water, near the two fire extinguishers by my burning scalp literally 2 foot away. Cool relief, finally. Everybody started pampering me and asking how I was, I instantly shook them off and shouted "AND YET, I AM STILL ALIVE!" like some daredevil Evel Knievel, the audience of about 400 people all clapped, Steve finished the show for me as I was rushed off to sit under an old farm tap. Luckily two other friends were there, one is training to be a nurse and she was great, the other kindly gave me a lift home. I spent the next two nights wrapped in greasy Vasolined cling-film, like some lubey crysalis.
So what have I learned? Well, if something goes wrong keep calm and point at something more spectacular.
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