The
other was the Festival of Fools in Penzance.
Malcolm Hardee brought his Greatest Show on Legs down for that one and enticed
me to join them and move to London. I had got the performing bug ---all the
blame being on Polgooth fayre.
Later on , Bob one of the main organisers,and probably some others went onto
the Elephant fayres, invited my later
group Cafe De Gaza to perform there.
Even
later , whilst touring in the north I came across Henry , working as a Circus
Ringmaster.
The
whole entity of Polgooth had quite a bonding effect on life in Cornwall at
that time and it sowed a lot of seeds for much that came after.
Digger
Dave:Feb 08.
Hi!
I was one of the performers at the Festival. I remember everyone arrived either
after dark Friday night or earlyish Saturday. We got there just after sunrise
Friday morning after driving all night and taking the cross-channel ferry.
(We lived in Amsterdam on a houseboat at the time). We had originally planned
on sleeping in the van– a huge old Citroen box – as the festival
was being held in a flat open paddock with plenty of room for all the vans,
busses, tents, etc expected to arrive. By European standards it was a fairly
ok summer, but we Aussies were the only ones who appeared to be freezing,
so we changed our minds at the last minute and booked ourselves into the only
nearby B & B we could find.
Copped
a fair bit of ribbing from the rest of the performers who all pitched their
tents on the festival site. But by the Saturday afternoon, it was pelting
with rain. The wind picked up and he rain went on for hours! We were the only
ones to be warm, dry and well rested when we went on stage. All the others
were drenched, trying their best to sleep in sagging soggy tents or their
vans.
When
the rain finally eased off there was a fire-eating show scheduled. One of
the guys, a fire eater from Django Edwards troupe, couldn’t find any
outlets stocking his usual fuel for the fire-eating act, so he made do with
petrol from the local service station. He had only just started his show,
which was outdoors and was being watched by most of the locals, including
lots of children, when the petrol just went whoosh! and the poor guy’s
whole head was just on fire. His hair and beard were gone in an instant. It
was terrible, and he was screaming. A lot of people were totally freaking
out. He got rushed off in an ambulance to the hospital. I don’t know
what happened to him after that; don’t think we ever saw him again.
I think all of us were pretty subdued after that. No-one really felt like
performing. But heaps of people had traveled from all over the place to be
at the festival, so we had to go on.
It
was a really weird time – the scenery was beautiful, the locals great,
the sense of friendship between all the performers was wonderful. But the
weather was appalling, and the fire-eating accident was horrible. Basically
from the performing side of the festival, the whole thing was a bit lack-lustre:
everyone was very stoned, quite a lot of tripping going on, everyone was soaking
wet for the whole time, shivering, not sleeping, and in a mild state of shock.
So there you have it. A true first hand account of the Festival.
Peaches Angelico.
Tibetan
Ukranian Mountain Troupe.
From
the Tibetan Book of the Road
Festival
of Fools. Penzance .
5
PM.
After
getting away from the very large roundabout and putting all energies into
getting to Penzance in time to get the marquee up,we get to Penzance and the
fools won't let us in ! They don't want the marquee either saying things like
"There is no room, we are full up and you weren't invited anyway , so
what do you expect. " and ' how can you come in when we didn't know you
were coming , how can you have your pudding if you don't eat your meat ? "
So
although Perry bus, Mac bus and Golly bus were already in and J managed
to slip in, we had to put the bus down by the harbour in a coach park.
Anyway the troupe is nearly back together but the friction on the outside
is causing tension and headaches on the inside -but we're staying cool
and not panicking like the other fools and so we can pull it off- we've
been in worse shit than this , we've been fighting the police all summer
and carrying generators on and off buses , we've had it all man , we
don't want to fight you, we've been fighting the police
all summer and carrying generators on and off
buses.........
Friday
29th Aug. 2 PM. .
Last
night small talks abounded in Perry bus about foolish Festival people
and how its not on that they are turning buses and trucks away at the
gate, some of whom have come all the way across the country to get here
. Its crazy but they just haven't catered for whats happening . So this
morning, a few words in the organisers ears about what a cock up this
is turning into and they confessed to being 'totally incapable and not
really having a clue where they're at. Like they don't even get their
dome up, but we've let them use the marquee that just appeared next
to the busses last night !. Anyway we gave a few helpful suggestions
on how to build a festival in 600 easy lessons and hopefully we can
work something out .
Saturday
Aug. 30th 7. PM.
More
Tibetans are claiming that the marquee is the best its ever been - with
bar , tables, chairs , straw bails and stage with PA and big pink tent
. Albion parachute covering half the inside of the tent. Its a good
space with day time friendly scenes and midnight madness and zanity.
|
Tibetans
Raising the Glove somewhere or other in the early 80s
© Igor Malaprop
|
Today
is very laid back with burnt out Tibetans slumped out over tables and on the
floor recovering from last night because last night it was all happening .
All but one of the Festival Foolish organisers went totally insane and were
seeing busses before their eyes and when four busses appeared at the gate
their circuits overloaded and heads exploded. In the heat of the chaos appeared
shortly , longly and extremely longly departed crew mates. Greame, Spike ,
buddy and Mike. Then did follow many hours of insanity in the marquee with
lots of trippers and space cadets , some of whom likened the scene to the
Hammer house of Horrors or even
----"
Magic Theatre " ----.
Not
for Everyone , ----mad men only .
Suddenly
as if by magic the clowns appeared and amazed all with a show performed in
the audience, while drunkard fools drunkardly fooled on the stage - once again
amid loons and lunacy the Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troupe
stole the show ! - and its not every day you steal your own show !
After
last night all we could do today was christen the marquee the' Cop Out Cafe'
although ideas were stirred up about ramming the main gate with four busses
and Molotov cocktails when a local piggie visited Mike and Buddy's busses
, parked next door and said ' you can't stay here, you'll have to go ".
But it seems to have calmed down now and the busses are still sitting outside
the great Penzanian show factory- its nice here innit ?
