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In a tent, I was to see Allenby’s Famous Flea Circus by Murphy’s Puppets - the guys who gave me the travel grant to come to Perth. (This one’s for you Nikole!) I lined up for twenty minutes, hoping to get into the 1.00pm showing - there was a line for ages, and no matter what time of day it was, there always seemed to be a line outside the tent. I missed the 1pm showing, so waited in line for another 20 min. for the next one. The show seemed extremely popular and the whole carnival day was full of families and kids.

Inside the tent, there were about 40 or 50 seats, and the tent was long, rather than wide. Up the front there was a small rostra stage, and basic lighting (front wash, white, maybe a little red thrown in). On the stage was a lectern-size table, with a box sitting on top. This was my first problem: quite clearly a flea circus is going to be small, so as to be realistic, but the size of the venue meant that my seat up the back was somewhat too far away. However, it wasn’t too bad, just not the best situation.

Murphy, who is the sole performer, was dressed in a grey ringmaster’s suit, and trimmed with sparkly red. Very appropriate, but in the hot and stuffy tent, I wonder how he survived! After the show, it was certainly clear that he was sweating.

Nevertheless, the show: as with most flea circus performances, this 15 minute act lies in the comedy of having ‘fleas’ (an imaginary set of creatures) perform tiny circus acts. Murphy introduces the fleas, and has them perform seesaw jumps, high wire tricks, a tower of death stunt (more on that below), and shoots them out of a cannon. Along the way, he kills most of his fleas, and wonders what his insurance company will think of it. How does he do all of the tricks? Well, the box on the table has various miniature circus items: a seesaw, a high wire, a small water tank (for diving into), and a cannon. By use of hidden mechanisms, the seesaw … seesaws, the high wire appears to be trodden on, and the diving board bounces as the ‘flea’ jumps.

One of the other problems was sound: Murphy was not mic’d and proved to be an issue, since there was a concert playing out nearby and was quite loud. Although I’m sure he was projecting as much as he could, from where I was sitting, it was very hard to hear at times. That and his techie didn’t lower his prerecorded circus music to an appropriate level, and at times completely drowned out the performer.

Personally, I found the show to be light on the puppetry and heavy on the random talking - especially at 15 minutes long. The audience, even with the excitable kids at the front, did not laugh loudly, and from the back almost seemed reticent to even giggle. Perhaps it was too hot, and energy was lost.

Having said all of that, the puppet - the circus itself - was beautifully handcrafted, and very believable, and most of the issues with the performance were due to location and issues out of Murphy’s control. My particular highlight of the show was the tower of death, where one of the fleas jumps off a diving tower into a tank of water. We watch Murphy pour water into the tank, the ‘flea’ takes one, two, three practice jumps, and finally dives. When it does, there is a literal splash from the water, perfectly timed, and it was a wonderfully funny moment.

This show seemed to be in the wrong place: ideal for a kids birthday party, or a small outdoor location, the Flea Circus was simply not the best it could have been. I’m giving it: (2.5 UNIMA stars out of 5)

Read the next review, about Japanese puppets, here. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s diary post. UPDATE: Read the next diary post here.