For further information regarding the other festival activities contact the Visitor Information Centre on: 01843 577577

 

Sideshow Illusions

Saturday 21 & Sunday 22 August at 11am to 6pm

The Market Place, Margate, Kent 

 

** Admission Free **

 

 

Back by popular demand with the NEW fully restored 'Monster Show' and ‘Professor Jon's Flea Circus’.

 

See The Headless Lady, can medical science keep her alive? Marvel at The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, a living, tiny, five inch girl and wonder at the statically charged Electra – she’s electrifying!

 

These and other incredible sideshows from the 1950s will be captivating audiences in the fantastic setting of The Market Place in Margate. An extravaganza of the unusual and bizarre, that has contributed to Margate’s entertainments over the last 60 years.

 

Many of the shows were debuted at Dreamland between 1961 and 1965, the shows were seen in the Scenic Theatre in Margate’s Dreamland, and will be on show using the original “Flash” the gaudy and extravagant outside panels, designed to attract and intrigue the casual visitors into parting with their 6d. 

 

The sideshows were first exhibited by showman Jon Gresham and they have been restored to full working order by Jon Marshall of Sideshow Illusions working with Pat Gresham, Jon Gresham’s widow.

 

This collection of original shows returns to Margate, from Showzam at Blackpool where Jon Marshall worked with the National Fairground Archive of Sheffield University, to enthral thousands of visitors earlier this year. “This will be a glorious celebration of the Sideshow”, said Jon, “There are so many people who have never seen one, it will be a pleasure to re-introduce them to a new generation.  For those older visitors, I know it will evoke many happy memories of a different era and of course they are great fun”.

 

Years ago these shows were extremely popular and families would be used to seeing them at; resorts, amusement parks and fairs where sideshows, freaks and illusions, tattooed and bearded ladies, snake shows and every sort of unusual attraction, were all available for a few pence.  

 

The glorious days of sideshow sunshine faded with the advent of package holidays, the spread of car ownership, labour costs, changes in public taste and creeping Political Correctness. All of these factors hastened their demise and they disappeared from the seafront, amusement parks and fairs.

 

“There is nothing to distress or alarm, we present a tasteful exhibition!”, so went the patter from the outside talker whose job it was to get the crowds in by promising “sex, horror and the bizarre” and Jon has discovered some original (unheard for over fifty years), tapes of the spiel which will be used in the presentation. Of course all those shows featured girls, this being a big selling point then, and, in keeping with the tradition, our Girl in the Goldfish Bowl will be wearing her Yellow Polka Dot Bikini! 

 

So be prepared to be amazed and amused, deceived and intrigued, just as our parents and grandparents were and, “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! Roll Up! Step right in and see the shows you can afford to see and you can’t afford to miss – in Margate Old Town for two days only!”

 

Please note: All images are under strict copyright and are reproduced by the kind permission of Kim from IMMI Photography, Sideshow Illusions and Magic Carpet.  Full permission needs to be granted for any usage whatsoever by the copyright holder.