This sketch was made by the Brighton-based illustrator, author, poet performer and teacher Curtis Tappenden. He is especially fond of circus and visits many shows, making lightning drawings capturing moments at the ringside. On Sunday, 29 April 2018, as part of the V&A’s Performance Festival, he led the workshop 'Drawn into Circus!' and, like his students, later sketched performers in Metta Theatre's extracts from Little Mermaid the Circus Sensation in the Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre.

Metta Theatre was established in 2005 by the director Poppy Burton-Morgan and Motley-trained designer William Reynolds. Producing cross-art form theatre and opera, Metta Theatre tours throughout the UK, combining emotionally powerful performances with imaginative theatricality and striking visual style. In 2018 Metta were artists in residence at the V&A and performed extracts from their circus musical Little Mermaid at the museum’s Performance Festival.

Written by Poppy Burton-Morgan and designed by William Reynolds with music by Matt Devereaux, Little Mermaid tells the story of a Prince consumed by the lure of the sea, and a mermaid longing for life on land, brought together by a raging storm.