Stars attend gala performance at Billy Smart's circus, sponsored by Variety Club.
Title reads: "Big Top Aids Charities".
London.
Variety Club sponsor star gala performance at Billy Smart's circus.
M/S elephant in circus parade. M/S bison / buffalo with large horns. Various shots clown on stilts. L/S entertainment personalities arriving at big top. C/U Dennis Price. C/U Bootsie and Snudge characters C/U magician David Nixon. C/U C.J. Latta (Director of Associated British Pictures) and Billy Butlin (of Butlin's Holiday Camps). C/U film star Stanley Baker. Various shots television personality / comedian Bruce Forsyth with footballer Billy Wright and his wife, singer Joy Beverley. C/U film star Robert Beatty.
L/S circus audience. M/S film star / comic actress Hattie Jacques and comedian Eric Sykes parading around ring. C/U Arthur Haynes and Bruce Forsyth having comic argument. L/S horses trotting around ring. C/U section of audience. L/S Seven Hervik acrobats dangling off rotating tower. M/S Great Henry Domis somersaulting on slender high wire. L/S Charlie Baumann with his famous tigers. C/U tigers inside cage. Brucie tries to persuade singer Dorothy Squires to go into the cage. Dorothy sings into a microphone inside tiger cage, she looks nervously around at the animals. C/U Brucie looking a bit worried. C/U tiger on a pedestal. Dorothy leaves the cage.
M/S audience. C/U actor Jon Pertwee encouraging baby elephant to stick its trunk into a drink. M/S elephants performing in ring with girls sitting on their backs ("the Digger Pugh Elephant Girls"). C/U small child watching. Various shots of Burma the elephant stepping over row of men lying on ring floor. According to narrator they are all millionaires, amongst them is Billy Butlin.
NB: Variety club press release, gala programme and newspaper cuttings on file.
NB: pictures slips at 01:22:10.
Unknown user says
"Bruce Forsythe" should read Bruce Forsyth.
"Bootsie and Snudge (comedians?)" - Bootsie and Snudge were actually two TV comedy show characters, played by the two actors seen here, Bill Fraser and Alfie Bass.
Seen to the left of Bruce Forsyth at 00:40 is actor Jess Conrad.
Unknown user says
Thanks.