The Stage

More top than flop

Published Monday 21 December 2009 at 15:50

It’s a shame the critics have flung so many custard pies at TV series Big Top. But is it really the big flop they’d have us believe?

Sure, the humour is unsophisticated, but it goes out at 7.30pm when it will catch a kids audience that won’t mind the more obvious and cartoonish jokes. It may even tempt some kids, who are seeing circus for the first time, to ask their parents to take them to a real circus, and that can only be a good thing.

If the dads think all ring mistresses look like Amanda Holden, meanwhile, I’m sure they’ll be only too happy to buy a ticket.

The best thing about Big Top is that while it may portray circus folk as a bunch of clowns, it doesn’t knock circus - it makes it look fun and colourful.

In the first episode, a member of the audience thanks the Circus Maestro team for the best night out he’s had in 50 years. Given that Big Top could so easily have tipped a bucket of water down the clown trousers of the real big top, could the Beeb have given circus a better plug than that?

Douglas McPherson

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