"Ordinary people doing extraordinary things": Meet the secret life of the circus

Fast forward to Zippo's Circus in 21st century Glasgow and you'll find that those early days are very much at the heart of this year's show. For Martin Burton, founder and director who has lived and breathed circus for over 40 years, it was crucial to pay homage to the past and celebrate the future in equal parts. This summer's offering, which opened in Glasgow this month and will now tour Scotland taking in Falkirk, Elgin and Wick, among other towns, starts with a nod to the past.

The ‘Courier of St Petersburg’ trick, in which the rider straddles two horses, picking up the traces of others as they pass below until he’s driving a whole ‘team’, was invented by Andrew Ducrow, who performed in Philip Astley’s troupe. The show also features the young sons – Maxim, four, and Charlie, six – of internationally renowned clowns Totti and Charlotte Alexis and ends with an acrobatic act by the next generation of daredevil circus family the Garcias, including Connor, 11, and Antonia, 15. Their parents, Vikki and Paulo, open the second half in a specially made prop rocket, which soars round the top of the ring while the pair perform jaw dropping aerial stunts.

"When we booked the rocket act people thought that of course we would finish with that," says Burton. "[But] I wanted to end by making a serious point about the future of the circus and that is all about the next generation. Looking at the talent of these kids, the future is bright."

Running a circus is no mean feat. On its UK tour Zippos will travel up to 6,000 miles, with 24 loads required to take the circus from one location to another. It takes the 15-strong technical crew six hours to rebuild the big top each time. Then there's the job of pulling in the punters. Burton admits last year was not a particularly strong one, but this year advance ticket sales are already up 35 per cent across Scotland.

Burton started as an outsider – or josser, as people who aren't born into circus families are known. He took a childhood passion further as a student and joined a mime troupe (in which David Bowie was briefly a member) before becoming a clown. Despite promises to his mother he'd get “a real job” after three years, he never looked back. After an escape trick went wrong he spent a year in a burns unit and then set up Zippos as an all-human circus. Domestic animals – horses and budgies – were introduced later, he claims due to public demand.

Animal rights campaigners disagree vehemently, and Burton claims he and his family have received death threats. This year, activists handed out leaflets outside Zippos before opening performances, warning of poor treatment of the horses. Animal rights organisation One Kind, which campaigned hard to secure Scotland's ban on wild animals introduced in May, claims the circus is no place for domestic animals, where it says they are exploited in the name of entertainment.

Yet Tamerlan Khadikov, from Kazakhstan – who owns all six of the horses travelling with this year's show – and Martin Burton are adamant that if there were any welfare concerns whatsoever they would be closed down. Restrictions are tighter in the UK than elsewhere, insists Khadilkov, who will take the horses back to their base on his farm in the Czech Republic after the tour is over.

Many performers on this tour grew up in a circus world when animal acts were still standard, such as Totti Alexis, the fifth generation member of his family – on his father's side – to be a clown. With minimal make-up and a large suit with neon stripes, Alexis is a contemporary clown, but he's also old school, describing himself as a citizen of the circus first and of the world second. He happened to be born in Germany, and was largely educated in the travelling school that was part of Circus Krone, Europe's largest circus. His oldest son, Charlie, was also born there, and his webcam school caters for all of Germany's circus and fairground children. His younger son, Maxim, was born in Denmark because that's where they happened to be at the time. He had been in six countries by the time he was three months old.

He claims never to have slept in a house “apart from a few nights in a hotel” and last had a break from tour about three or four years ago. “The great thing about this life is when you want to see another country you just find a circus that tours there and get a contract,” he says. “If I'm more than a certain time in one place I get nervous.”

Veteran ringmaster Norman Barrett, now 83, who refuses to sit down wearing his costume (it's one of many circus superstitions), explains. “Whatever we do in this crazy life of ours, and it's a wonderful life, we are all doing it from our hearts. This is our life. It's not a job. Our whole day centres around what we are going to do in that ring at showtime.” Cut circus people open, he says, and it's sawdust, not blood, you'll find. His father was a farmer who loved the circus so much he set up a ring in the barn, trained the horses and eventually went professional. Barrett was born in 1935 and remembers his father touring London in wartime.

So what is the future of the circus? "It will always be there,” says Barrett emphatically. Alexis hedges: "It will change of course, it will adapt ... Barrett jumps in: "Well, that's good, is it not? We want it to change.”

“Circus is evolving,” agrees Pablo Garcia, who is helping his sons with their daily training. “There's different types and a lot of variety shows. But I think circus has got a bright future. We've certainly never been short of work and hopefully they,” he signals to the boys, “will have the same experience.”

None of this family can imagine any other life. Pablo's mother's connections go back generations while his father arrived in Scotland as a refugee from the Spanish civil war and was circus trained by an uncle. His wife, Vikki, comes from the famous Pinder family who owned both circuses and fairgrounds for more than seven generations, and are old hands at dealing with change.

John Haze, director of the Moscow State Circus and Circus of Horrors, says the galloping pace of development in recent decades has been thrilling. Yet it's not been easy in recent years, with many people constrained by austerity. "Luckily the [film] Greatest Showman came knocking," he says. "It has been a shot in the arm for the circus. And the circus just keeps on re-inventing itself. It's more diverse than ever.”

That diversity is seen in the trend for smaller, more rootsy ventures such as Let's Circus, which not only brings its little big top to remote communities and islands across the UK but breaks down barriers by running workshops in circus skills for its audiences. “We like to think of it as the circus that runs away to join you,” explains Helen Averley, managing partner. It's also apparent in the ever-more established contemporary scene, promoted by companies like the London-based circus pioneers Upswing, which, with the help of arts council funding, can push the boundaries of the form, helping re-invigorate the commercial circus operations.

Street performances, festivals, west end shows ... circus is now everywhere according to Professor Vanessa Toulmin, a researcher in circus and fairground history from Sheffield University. She tells stories of the original circus buildings – Hengler's Circus in Sauchiehall Street was one of the best in the UK – of groundbreaking women trapeze artists and of an incredible art form that soared from its illegitimate roots (it needed no planning or licence unlike stage shows) to become the darling of the establishment – Queen Victoria was a big fan. And 250 years later its appeal endures. "I think it's the romance that still draws people in,” says Toulmin. "Performers travel the world, they see amazing things. But they are ordinary people. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”