NoFit State Circus

Tom Rack, sole survivor of the company founders, is promising a physical, human and sensual rollercoaster, a large-scale immersive circus about hope in rebellion as he brings NoFit State Circus to Brighton Festival with their new show carnation.

Running from May 2-25 at various times in the big top at Black Rock, it offers “world-class circus, live music and bold cinematic imagery (colliding) in a charged, mesmeric big-top experience”, created and directed by Firenza Guidi.

Tom explains: “It is very loosely inspired by the dystopian novels of the 20th century like 1984. There are quite a few novels of that genre in there – or rather images from those novels. And it's because you can see so many parallels with now. There is a little bit of dystopia going on, and what we are trying to do is to inspire hope through revolution. I think we can all see that we need change if you look at what is going on around the world with the rise of the right and the oppression of refugees. We're not in a great place.

“And so we are just hoping that in a small way on a small platform that we can make some kind of comment on that – a comment that might go over people’s heads because they're just concentrating on the fun of it all but it is there if you want to take a slightly more intellectual look at what we're saying and at what we're doing. This is a different show for us. It is a little bit darker perhaps than our more recent work but it's still fun and high energy and very, very enjoyable.”

Tom added: “We are a contemporary circus company, and this is our 40th year. We've been around since the beginning of what used to be new circus or circus theatre before contemporary circus was a thing. We built ourselves up from a bunch of street performers who were going around Europe, and from that we have become the UK's biggest tented contemporary touring circus company.

“I am the last remaining founder member... and it's all thanks to Margaret Thatcher that we started! Me and my five contemporaries that started the company were all at university. We were all students that used to juggle for fun and used to go to festivals for fun, and it was a great time in the 1980s, different times with raves and parties. It was a particular moment in history.

“And then my contemporaries left university and there was a danger of us all scattering to the four winds but then there was this thing called the enterprise allowance. Margaret Thatcher and Mr Tebbit decided that we should all become entrepreneurial and get on our bikes. And so we decided to set up a little company back in the days when local authorities used to do festivals.

“But in the winter there was no work so we got together as a team of five and made shows for village halls and for schools, bigger theatrical shows and that's what became the nucleus of the company now.”

As for the name NoFit State: “It was the 80s and there was a certain amount of no fit state going on! But you also had the Moscow State Circus everywhere and the Chinese State Circus everywhere... and the name just amused us!”