This sketch was made during a performance at incredibly rapid speed, just by the light afforded in the tent, by the Brighton-based illustrator, author, poet, performer and teacher Curtis Tappenden. He has visited many circuses and has made hundreds of lightning drawings capturing moments at the ringside. He promotes the importance of circus as excellent affordable family entertainment, believing that drawing at the ringside offers him special insight into performance as an international art form.

Tweedy the clown, with his trademark quiff of red hair and lopsided smile, is the creation of the Scottish performer Alan Digweed, who appears annually with Giffords Circus and Cirque Berserk, in plays and pantomime, and in his one-man show. Giffords is the small family-run circus founded by Nell Gifford and her husband Toti in 2000 that tours annually in the west of England, only making Chiswick a regular tour date in 2015.