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Helmbrecht Hoppe

Published Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 12:20 by Don Stacey

Helmbrecht Hoppe, who died on September 15 in Toulouse, France, at 77, was one of Europe’s leading circus performers, his number with unrideable mules being rated “the greatest laugh in showbusiness”.

Born at Helmbrechts, near Hof in Germany, on October 6, 1931, he was a son of circus performers Oskar Hoppe and Gusti Holzmuller. Oskar became a prominent German circus proprietor in the fifties and sixties, running firstly the Circus Busch-Berlin and later the Circus Willy Hagenbeck. Helmbrecht’s unrideable mules act was featured with Busch-Berlin in 1960, along with his wife Karin’s riding act, but he was to gain fame away from the family circus, headlining in all the leading European circuses with an act in which members of the public were invited to have a go on the recalcitrant mules, the biggest laughs coming from the antics of Helmbrecht and Karin themselves, posing as audience members.

Hoppe’s unrideable mules proved a particular draw with circus lovers in Britain, returning time and again to leading British circuses. They played at the famous Blackpool Tower Circus in 1959 and again in the summer of 1965, and at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome in Billy Russell’s Circus in the summer of 1964.

They wowed audiences at the Glasgow Kelvin Hall Circus in the winters of 1961/62 and 1976/77, at Bertram Mills Circus in London for the Christmas season of 1964/65, another London appearance for Billy Smart’s Circus in 1967 and starring appearances in Manchester at the Kings’ Hall Belle Vue International Circus in 1973 and 1977.

Touring in England with Gerry Cottle’s Circus in 1978, they also appeared at the Brighton Centre’s Circus that summer, staged by the Madison Square Garden Company and Holiday on Ice, after which they were to become associated with the worldwide touring ice spectaculars of Holiday on Ice until 1985. For the summer of 1985, they were in Germany with Circus Barum and last worked in Italy in 1987 before retiring in Toulouse.

Hoppe is survived by his wife Karin, formerly a member of the famous continental riding act of the Casi Troupe, and their son Daniel.

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