Doing Circus Differently: The Story Behind Fête du Puck

Say the word “circus” to most people and they picture one of two things. Red and yellow stripes, sawdust and a ringmaster in a top hat. Or a giant arena show you watch from so far back the acrobats look like ants. I started The Revel Puck Circus because I didn’t think either picture was the whole story, and because some of the best circus in the world was being made for people who never got anywhere near it.

We’re an East London company and a not-for-profit. Our aim is to change what people think circus is, which in practice means putting our big top in the middle of town rather than in a field off a ring road, and making the circus feel like a proper night out. More than 200,000 people have now seen us live. In Walthamstow, where we’ve played every winter since December 2023, nearly three quarters of our audience come from local postcodes, and ten per cent of tickets for every performance go for £3, no questions asked, to local people who would otherwise miss out.

What “differently” actually means

A lot of it comes down to distance. Our Little Top is a one-off “mini big top”, inspired by our friends at My Laika, and it seats 210 people in the round. Nobody sits more than six rows from the ring. You don’t just see the tricks, you hear the breath before a catch and watch an acrobat glance at the person about to throw them. Circus is the most human art form there is, and you lose that the further back you sit. The music is loud, the lighting is theatrical, and nobody is shouting “roll up, roll up”.

How Fête du Puck came about

Fête du Puck started from two ideas. The first was scale. Big circus usually needs a big tent and a big field. We wanted to see how much of that spectacle we could squeeze into a tiny venue, and make a show full of moments where you can’t quite believe what’s happening on a stage that small: aerialists flying a few metres above your head, acrobats landing a breath away from the front row.

The second was who it’s for. Fête du Puck isn’t a children’s show and it isn’t an adults’ show. It’s made to speak to everyone in the tent at once, the six-year-old, their grandparents and the group of friends who came straight from work, and to be fun, accessible and open whoever you are.

It has also always been international. Every year we bring exceptional artists to London from around the world, including award winners from Cirque de Demain in Paris, because this is one of the most diverse cities on earth and the ring should reflect the people sitting around it.

The name roughly translates as Puck’s party, à l’anglaise: a celebration of circus past, present and future, here for a good time, not a long time. Last winter it sold out across the Christmas period, with 15,000 people through the tent, and this December it’s back on Walthamstow Town Square with an entirely new cast.

What audiences can expect

You walk in from the cold to a heated tent, a bar, and a ring with seats banked all the way round it. The show runs 100 minutes with an interval: aerial work under the lights, acrobatics, juggling, comedy and a soundtrack that gets people stamping their feet by the end. Outside there’s a beer garden and East London street food, so the evening doesn’t stop when the show does. It’s two minutes’ walk from Walthamstow Central and step free throughout.

I’ve been on the other side of the ring too. For the last few weeks of our tour this summer I ended up in the show myself, as the clown. From in there you can see every face, and the moment I love is about ten minutes in, when a room full of people who arrived separately stops being a crowd and becomes an audience. Everyone gasps at the same time. Strangers grab each other’s arms. That’s the thing circus does better than almost anything else.

Why circus works for a Christmas party

That moment is exactly what most Christmas parties are missing.

The hard part of any work do is the first hour. People cluster with the colleagues they already know, the new starters hover by the door, and the conversation stays on safe ground. A show solves that before anyone has to try. For 100 minutes the whole team is looking at the same thing and feeling the same thing, and then they’ve got something to talk about for the rest of the night. Nobody has to be good at small talk to turn to the person next to them and say “did you see that?”

It’s also a great leveller. The managing director and the graduate trainee are equally hopeless at a triple somersault, and equally impressed by it.

There are practical reasons too, and planners will recognise these. A circus is the entertainment, the room and the talking point in one booking. And because the show has a set start and a clear shape, the evening runs to time: welcome drink, show, interval, show, then the bar and beer garden for as long as people want to stay.

Most of all, it gets remembered. People are still talking in January about the night someone flew over their heads.

The bigger picture

I still think circus in this country is undersold. It’s world-class and it’s for everyone. Fête du Puck is our best argument for that, a show that’s as happy being a family’s Christmas treat on a Saturday afternoon as it is being a company’s whole party on a Thursday night.

If you want to see what we mean, come and find the tent on the square this December.

About the author

Luke Hallgarten is the founder and artistic director of The Revel Puck Circus, an award-winning contemporary circus company and not-for-profit based in East London. Since its first season the company has played to more than 200,000 people, toured the UK, appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe and made Walthamstow its winter home. Fête du Puck returns to Walthamstow Town Square from 3 December 2026, with the tent available for exclusive Christmas party hire.