July 4, 2026 • 14 mins
Simon Painter is behind some of the world’s biggest live circus and magic shows, and his latest production will be coming to our shores this August.
Painter's other works include The Illusionists, Cirque du Soleil, Circus 1903 and the stage adaption of Now You See Me - and his new Cirque Alice show aims to live up to this standard.
The show is a reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, brought to life by a cast of aerialists, acrobats and other circus performers.
"I've done a lot of different cirque shows and what I'm looking for - other than bringing the best of the best acts from anywhere on earth to a stage - we're looking for a motif that can hold the thing together, to give the thing a reason to exist."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks AB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
From performer himself to creator of world class stage shows,
Simon Painter is the man behind some of the world's
biggest live circus and magic shows, the likes of the Illusionists,
Solis Circus nineteen oh three and the stage adaptation of
the film Now You See Me. This week it was
announced Simon's Circallis is heading to our Shawls. The show
was a reimagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, brought
(00:36):
to life by cast of aerialists, acrobats and other circus performers.
Captain Circus Simon Painter joins me now from the UK.
Good morning, Simon, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Good morning, thanks for having you. So.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I was wondering if we could focus on your career first.
Am I right? You started out as a performer as
a fiddle player and a classical violinist. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
That is correct?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Feels a very long time ago now, but that's exactly
how I started.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And you were part of spirit of the dance I was.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I was the guy that had the leather jumpsuit and
a fiddle that set on fire, and I used to
prance around the stage when the dancers in between the
big dance numbers and entertain the crowd in between the
sort of epic dance numbers. So I was sort of
I was like the fill in soloist in the show
that was.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
That was my gig when I was twenty one years old,
because spirit of the dance was enormous, wasn't it. I mean,
what was it like to be part of that?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, it was.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Completely surreal because I was a tlassic violinist and a
drummer and i'd you know, I was literally like a
giggy musician, often very unemployed, and you know, playing gigs.
I was doing, you know, sometimes a couple of hundred
people a night, or sometimes five people a night, as
many musicians do, you know, really scrapping away a living
in South London and really you know, not quite knowing
(01:55):
where everything was going. And then all of a sudden
I auditioned for this show and literally a matter of
weeks later, I was playing to three thousand people a
night and touring all over the world.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So it was a very surreal thing to happen to
me very kind of quickly. But I just loved it.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I mean, it was just an amazing opportunity and I.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Truly loved doing it. It was it was it was joyous.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Irish dancing is cool. But there was a trick to
taking it and turning it into a global touring show.
And I wonder if that was when you first started
to learn what it takes to make a successful show.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I mean, I saw, you know, something going from literally
zero to one hundred really quickly. And I think as
a sort of performer, you know, and we have a
lot of performers that now work for my company. We
employ a lot of people that really started at the
very lowest ring of the ladder and kind of climb
their way through to the choreographers or company managers and directors,
and you know, you forget how much you pick up, right,
(02:51):
So even if you're in rehearsals, but you understand about
the marketing, the promotion and how good the show has
to be to sort of earn the trust and the
respects of an audience. So whilst you might only be
the performer, you get to see all that stuff, but
behind the scenes, all the rest of it, and so
over a few years, you really do kind of learn
what it takes.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So how do you move from performer to creating your
own shows?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, it's I was.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
In South Africa touring with the show, and it was
like a really big deal there. I think it was
the first time a show like that come of South Africa.
So we were completely sold out. And I saw a
troop of African dancers in.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Soweto and they were just unbelievably amazing.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
They sort of did this thing with dum boots on
their feet, very syncopated, and it was very much like
Irish dancing, but its seat of African and so I
just jumped and I was like, this is going to
the next big thing.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I'm going to have an African lover dance.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
And I worked there eighteen months on this to the project,
which was incredible, and we raised all the I raised
all the money.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We made this sort of great promo and this Marty thing,
and we.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Had the theater books and we were just about to
launch the show and very sadly, my lead investor died
of a heart attack and the show never opened and
I lost allway money. So that's how one does it,
the non traditional way, which was obviously terrible for a
number of reasons. But you know, I actually ended up
(04:16):
flying back home to England and becoming the unemployed fiddle
blow again.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And there's nothing more humbling than, you know, thinking that
you've made.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
It and then being at the back of the bus
playing the fiddle about three weeks later. But you know,
I had nothing to lose, and I jumped back on
the sort of horse, so to speak, and started again.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
And I ended up making a search show sort of
very similar to certain so delay. But when I was
twenty three years old and.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
I just continued and those shows, so you know, I
was getting better, and you know, it got better and better,
and eventually the shows went to the Sydney Opera House
and they started touring around the world. And then I
moved to Los Angeles and started a company and things
just happened super super fast.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So over the period of years, I ran venues. I
kind of.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Studied ideas, always creating the ideas first and seeing if
anyone at all would be interested in buying them. So
that's kind of the very the short version, the chaosic
version of.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
How it happened.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It's quite a journey. I mean, you have created some
of the biggest shows in the world. What do you
put your success down to is it? Does it come
down to the idea?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Look, I think I'm maybe it comes from being a performer.
So you know, I'm very in tune or with as
a performer, like with what the audience likes, especially the
solo performer, right, so they sort of a good solo
perform And you see this with anyone who's like a
you know, fantastic singer or you know, just an amazing
actor on stage. They know how to make the audience
(05:43):
react in the moment. And I think as a perform
I look that right, being on stage for so many years,
and so I think when I'm looking at a show,
what I'm really thinking about is would I spend my
hard earned money to come and see something like this?
And often then I you know, have the idea, whether
it be a sort of you know game, a throne show,
or a circaust show, or you know, an illusions show,
(06:05):
a massive magic show, you sort of have the idea
like what is that something interesting? Is like you know,
the good folk of news that you don't get to
part with their hard own cash to come and see this,
And often the answer is, you know, like mayor maybe,
but sometimes you find something I really believe in this
and that's really what it's about. And then I sort
of often run it by, you know, my wife and
my mother and said a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I've probably got twenty five people.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Like kind of call and be like, what do you
think if we get Alice in Wonderland as a search show?
You know, and you know, sometimes these ideas are really
wacky and people like it's cool, but maybe not. And
then often you come across things and people say, well
that that could be amazing, and then you sort of
start on the journey of making it.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And that's really.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Sort of how it happens. It's just sort of me
deedling away about what I think people might like.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Tell me a little bit about sir Ellis, because when
I sort of heard that it was inspired by Allie
in Wonderland, I thought, of course, because it's such an
it's such a it's a story you feel with so
much and sort of imagination and creativity. It's why, yes,
it's sort of perfect for this kind of interpretation.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, I absolutely think so.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
I mean, it's an idea that my wife actually had
twenty years ago. So I've created a lot of search
shows over my life, fortunate enough to create a lot
of big shows for SLEI and some smaller boutique shows
as well, like Lenoire that actually I think came through
New Zealand a while ago. So I've done a lot
of different search shows. And what we're looking for in
(07:32):
a search sular other than bringing the best of the
best of the best acts on from anywhere on Earth
to a stage, We're looking at the source of like
motif that can hold the things together, to give the
thing a reason to exist and alis in Wonderland. You know,
it's just such an amazing story full of incredible characters, right,
So you have this the protagonist Alice, wandering through this
(07:53):
almost like whimsical nonsense world meeting fantastical characters.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And we thoughts, you know, what.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Could these characters be if they were to sort of
be have to sort of shirk powers, these sort of
super eras of flight and of you know, strength and
endurance and contortion. And then we sort of piecing it together, like,
you know, would the Flamingos.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Be flying with the would the Nights be balancing on.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Top of each other with the contortionists be caterpillars that
kind of form into this contortion and it actually came
together pretty quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And also we I've sort of my.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Children, you know, helps a lot actually because you know
they're you know, they're they're twelve to eight, and they
sort of really understood the story from the sort of
child's perspective as well, like what do you think of
the three contortionists can end up looking like a caterpillar?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Like, yeah, like that might be cool. So that's how
it sort of started.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
And then we really did want to bring you know,
with everything, we do want to raise the bar, and
from doing so much work, it sort of like sort
of we do know with very very finest people on
earth in terms of like their acrobatic prowess, the gold
medal winners the Olympics sort of medalists are and we
sort of paired those extraordinary people with this sort of storyline.
(09:02):
And that's what we tried to do, bring those two
things together to sort of put a show on that
inspires us narratively in terms of the characters and really
puts a speedge of our seats in terms of the talent.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I mean, I'm constantly blown away by the kind of
X that you see in these circus shows and what
the performers can do. Is it the same for you?
Do you keep finding performers and X that blow your mind.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
There is nothing I like more than discovering something that's
completely blows me away because I have seen everything. So
you know, for twenty five years, I've traveled around the
world looking for the best talent. So when I see
something that blows me away, you know, it really doesn't
sound me.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And in this show, we do have some things that
I've never seen before. The two guys that play the
Knights are from Tanzania. They do an act where it's
trying to imagine this.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
A guy is balanced on top of the other guy
upside down on his head. You've got an incredibly strong
guy and that upside down balanced on his head is
another guy. And they do that whilst climbing.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Up a sort of twenty foot ladder without any staty.
So I thought that and it's the whole show is
sort of set to clas music. So that's that's an
incredible piece of bornings.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And it's just such, you know, the mostive stuff, like
you really you sort of understand.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The character and then what they do always just raises
and raisers of art.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
So there's sort of a handful of acts and is
shown that for me, really are things that I haven't
really seen before.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I've seen things that are similar but not to the
same level, and I was like, right, we have to
bring these people into the show.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Simon, you're very versatile in terms of the shows that
you're making. The Circus, Broadway Magic, which one is the
most lucrative if I can be impolite and talk money, wow,
the most lucrative.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Well, they can all be extremely lucrative, and they can
all be extremely disastrous depending on the week, and not
because of the shows, but because of things like you know,
global pandemics or you know, we've once got a show
shut down because an Icelandic volcano exploded and we couldn't
fly the cast between two countries. So fortunately we've never
(11:02):
sort of lost money on a show because of the show.
It's always you know, like some crazy chaos that thing happens,
like the entire world closes down for a pandemic. The
shows generally speaking that are family residents, so things that
like we sort of call it the three gee of entertainment,
which means the three generations of a family watching a
show together. They're the ones for us that really seem
(11:26):
to financially make the most money because you know, as
a parent myself, I'm always trying to find something to
do with my kids that.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Get them off the bloody screens and into something. And
so when I can go, I can bring my mother,
I can bring my.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Wife, I can bring my kids, and then you sort
of have this three generation of a family watching a
show together.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
That's really the star that I really like doing. And
it's a joy, you know, looking.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Out sort of often I'm on stage just before the
show and I sort of peak through the curtain and
see that, you know, three generations of a family waiting
to see the show star.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
That's lovely. That's a lovely thing to see.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Where is magic ed? I read that magic shows are
having a comeback?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Is that true? So we we have the license for
now you see me live. Previously to that, I created
the show called The Illusionists, which I think is probably.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Most Yeah, it was on Broadway in it and it
was at the Sydney Opera House, and I think it
played four hundred cities across the world. And that's closed
down around the time of the pandemic, and then recently
now you See Me, which is the big magic franchise
and Lions Gates about magicians that try and rob a
bank using sort of heist, and we very luckily got
(12:40):
the license and lines Gate we're invited to take a
look at that. So we opened recently at the Sydney
Opera House. It's about to open in London. It's extraordinarily
well in Sydney this summer, and it's about to open
the MNGM Grand in Las Vegas in October. So it
is really having a resurgence right now, and I think,
(13:00):
you know, it's a it's a joy to be a
part of it.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You're incredibly busy, Simon. You're also about to open Game
of Thrones, I believe in a couple of weeks. So
I would imagine that being successful at this career also
you need to be very good at juggling a lot
of balls in the year.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I definitely exact.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
I mean, I do have, you know, an enormously amazing
team like I do do the juggling, but they also do.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
A lot more of the juggling.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
I mean, I can imagine my team has spread around
the world, So I don't really have an office.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I have like people that work literally sort.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Of my partners and my co creators work everywhere from
Brisbane to Los Angeles to London to South of France,
so it's it's quite a widespread team and you.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Know, that's really amazing.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
And so they do do a lot of the heavy
lifting in terms of like I have the idea and
then I kind of let them run with it and
I sort of come and own it and skip away
in it. But it's and my wife actually is the
personive Directorcalis.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Which is incredible. So we she was the director of
my shows for ten.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Years and then we both start having a family and
she took time off to be like a full time mom,
and then a couple of years ago she said, I
really really want to engage a part of my brain again,
and so she now is what the co director of Circulus,
So it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
She's unbelievably excited to come to Aucklands because it's a fecit.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
City, so she'll be coming in a couple of months
time to open the show and she's over the moon
about it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Oh fantastic, Simon. It's been a real pleasure to talk
to you this morning. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Absolutely, I can't wait for you to see the show.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Sick Ellis is coming to Auckland's Civic Theater from August
twenty eighth to September.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks AB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
From performer himself to creator of world class stage shows,
Simon Painter is the man behind some of the world's
biggest live circus and magic shows, the likes of the Illusionists,
Solis Circus nineteen oh three and the stage adaptation of
the film Now You See Me. This week it was
announced Simon's Circallis is heading to our Shawls. The show
was a reimagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, brought
(00:36):
to life by cast of aerialists, acrobats and other circus performers.
Captain Circus Simon Painter joins me now from the UK.
Good morning, Simon, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Good morning, thanks for having you. So.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I was wondering if we could focus on your career first.
Am I right? You started out as a performer as
a fiddle player and a classical violinist. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
That is correct?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Feels a very long time ago now, but that's exactly
how I started.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And you were part of spirit of the dance I was.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I was the guy that had the leather jumpsuit and
a fiddle that set on fire, and I used to
prance around the stage when the dancers in between the
big dance numbers and entertain the crowd in between the
sort of epic dance numbers. So I was sort of
I was like the fill in soloist in the show
that was.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
That was my gig when I was twenty one years old,
because spirit of the dance was enormous, wasn't it. I mean,
what was it like to be part of that?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, it was.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Completely surreal because I was a tlassic violinist and a
drummer and i'd you know, I was literally like a
giggy musician, often very unemployed, and you know, playing gigs.
I was doing, you know, sometimes a couple of hundred
people a night, or sometimes five people a night, as
many musicians do, you know, really scrapping away a living
in South London and really you know, not quite knowing
(01:55):
where everything was going. And then all of a sudden
I auditioned for this show and literally a matter of
weeks later, I was playing to three thousand people a
night and touring all over the world.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So it was a very surreal thing to happen to
me very kind of quickly. But I just loved it.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I mean, it was just an amazing opportunity and I.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Truly loved doing it. It was it was it was joyous.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Irish dancing is cool. But there was a trick to
taking it and turning it into a global touring show.
And I wonder if that was when you first started
to learn what it takes to make a successful show.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I mean, I saw, you know, something going from literally
zero to one hundred really quickly. And I think as
a sort of performer, you know, and we have a
lot of performers that now work for my company. We
employ a lot of people that really started at the
very lowest ring of the ladder and kind of climb
their way through to the choreographers or company managers and directors,
and you know, you forget how much you pick up, right,
(02:51):
So even if you're in rehearsals, but you understand about
the marketing, the promotion and how good the show has
to be to sort of earn the trust and the
respects of an audience. So whilst you might only be
the performer, you get to see all that stuff, but
behind the scenes, all the rest of it, and so
over a few years, you really do kind of learn
what it takes.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So how do you move from performer to creating your
own shows?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, it's I was.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
In South Africa touring with the show, and it was
like a really big deal there. I think it was
the first time a show like that come of South Africa.
So we were completely sold out. And I saw a
troop of African dancers in.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Soweto and they were just unbelievably amazing.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
They sort of did this thing with dum boots on
their feet, very syncopated, and it was very much like
Irish dancing, but its seat of African and so I
just jumped and I was like, this is going to
the next big thing.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I'm going to have an African lover dance.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
And I worked there eighteen months on this to the project,
which was incredible, and we raised all the I raised
all the money.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We made this sort of great promo and this Marty thing,
and we.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Had the theater books and we were just about to
launch the show and very sadly, my lead investor died
of a heart attack and the show never opened and
I lost allway money. So that's how one does it,
the non traditional way, which was obviously terrible for a
number of reasons. But you know, I actually ended up
(04:16):
flying back home to England and becoming the unemployed fiddle
blow again.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And there's nothing more humbling than, you know, thinking that
you've made.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
It and then being at the back of the bus
playing the fiddle about three weeks later. But you know,
I had nothing to lose, and I jumped back on
the sort of horse, so to speak, and started again.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
And I ended up making a search show sort of
very similar to certain so delay. But when I was
twenty three years old and.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
I just continued and those shows, so you know, I
was getting better, and you know, it got better and better,
and eventually the shows went to the Sydney Opera House
and they started touring around the world. And then I
moved to Los Angeles and started a company and things
just happened super super fast.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So over the period of years, I ran venues. I
kind of.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Studied ideas, always creating the ideas first and seeing if
anyone at all would be interested in buying them. So
that's kind of the very the short version, the chaosic
version of.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
How it happened.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It's quite a journey. I mean, you have created some
of the biggest shows in the world. What do you
put your success down to is it? Does it come
down to the idea?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Look, I think I'm maybe it comes from being a performer.
So you know, I'm very in tune or with as
a performer, like with what the audience likes, especially the
solo performer, right, so they sort of a good solo
perform And you see this with anyone who's like a
you know, fantastic singer or you know, just an amazing
actor on stage. They know how to make the audience
(05:43):
react in the moment. And I think as a perform
I look that right, being on stage for so many years,
and so I think when I'm looking at a show,
what I'm really thinking about is would I spend my
hard earned money to come and see something like this?
And often then I you know, have the idea, whether
it be a sort of you know game, a throne show,
or a circaust show, or you know, an illusions show,
(06:05):
a massive magic show, you sort of have the idea
like what is that something interesting? Is like you know,
the good folk of news that you don't get to
part with their hard own cash to come and see this,
And often the answer is, you know, like mayor maybe,
but sometimes you find something I really believe in this
and that's really what it's about. And then I sort
of often run it by, you know, my wife and
my mother and said a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I've probably got twenty five people.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Like kind of call and be like, what do you
think if we get Alice in Wonderland as a search show?
You know, and you know, sometimes these ideas are really
wacky and people like it's cool, but maybe not. And
then often you come across things and people say, well
that that could be amazing, and then you sort of
start on the journey of making it.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And that's really.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Sort of how it happens. It's just sort of me
deedling away about what I think people might like.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Tell me a little bit about sir Ellis, because when
I sort of heard that it was inspired by Allie
in Wonderland, I thought, of course, because it's such an
it's such a it's a story you feel with so
much and sort of imagination and creativity. It's why, yes,
it's sort of perfect for this kind of interpretation.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, I absolutely think so.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
I mean, it's an idea that my wife actually had
twenty years ago. So I've created a lot of search
shows over my life, fortunate enough to create a lot
of big shows for SLEI and some smaller boutique shows
as well, like Lenoire that actually I think came through
New Zealand a while ago. So I've done a lot
of different search shows. And what we're looking for in
(07:32):
a search sular other than bringing the best of the
best of the best acts on from anywhere on Earth
to a stage, We're looking at the source of like
motif that can hold the things together, to give the
thing a reason to exist and alis in Wonderland. You know,
it's just such an amazing story full of incredible characters, right,
So you have this the protagonist Alice, wandering through this
(07:53):
almost like whimsical nonsense world meeting fantastical characters.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And we thoughts, you know, what.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Could these characters be if they were to sort of
be have to sort of shirk powers, these sort of
super eras of flight and of you know, strength and
endurance and contortion. And then we sort of piecing it together, like,
you know, would the Flamingos.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Be flying with the would the Nights be balancing on.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Top of each other with the contortionists be caterpillars that
kind of form into this contortion and it actually came
together pretty quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And also we I've sort of my.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Children, you know, helps a lot actually because you know
they're you know, they're they're twelve to eight, and they
sort of really understood the story from the sort of
child's perspective as well, like what do you think of
the three contortionists can end up looking like a caterpillar?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Like, yeah, like that might be cool. So that's how
it sort of started.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
And then we really did want to bring you know,
with everything, we do want to raise the bar, and
from doing so much work, it sort of like sort
of we do know with very very finest people on
earth in terms of like their acrobatic prowess, the gold
medal winners the Olympics sort of medalists are and we
sort of paired those extraordinary people with this sort of storyline.
(09:02):
And that's what we tried to do, bring those two
things together to sort of put a show on that
inspires us narratively in terms of the characters and really
puts a speedge of our seats in terms of the talent.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I mean, I'm constantly blown away by the kind of
X that you see in these circus shows and what
the performers can do. Is it the same for you?
Do you keep finding performers and X that blow your mind.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
There is nothing I like more than discovering something that's
completely blows me away because I have seen everything. So
you know, for twenty five years, I've traveled around the
world looking for the best talent. So when I see
something that blows me away, you know, it really doesn't
sound me.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And in this show, we do have some things that
I've never seen before. The two guys that play the
Knights are from Tanzania. They do an act where it's
trying to imagine this.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
A guy is balanced on top of the other guy
upside down on his head. You've got an incredibly strong
guy and that upside down balanced on his head is
another guy. And they do that whilst climbing.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Up a sort of twenty foot ladder without any staty.
So I thought that and it's the whole show is
sort of set to clas music. So that's that's an
incredible piece of bornings.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And it's just such, you know, the mostive stuff, like
you really you sort of understand.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The character and then what they do always just raises
and raisers of art.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
So there's sort of a handful of acts and is
shown that for me, really are things that I haven't
really seen before.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I've seen things that are similar but not to the
same level, and I was like, right, we have to
bring these people into the show.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Simon, you're very versatile in terms of the shows that
you're making. The Circus, Broadway Magic, which one is the
most lucrative if I can be impolite and talk money, wow,
the most lucrative.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Well, they can all be extremely lucrative, and they can
all be extremely disastrous depending on the week, and not
because of the shows, but because of things like you know,
global pandemics or you know, we've once got a show
shut down because an Icelandic volcano exploded and we couldn't
fly the cast between two countries. So fortunately we've never
(11:02):
sort of lost money on a show because of the show.
It's always you know, like some crazy chaos that thing happens,
like the entire world closes down for a pandemic. The
shows generally speaking that are family residents, so things that
like we sort of call it the three gee of entertainment,
which means the three generations of a family watching a
show together. They're the ones for us that really seem
(11:26):
to financially make the most money because you know, as
a parent myself, I'm always trying to find something to
do with my kids that.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Get them off the bloody screens and into something. And
so when I can go, I can bring my mother,
I can bring my.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Wife, I can bring my kids, and then you sort
of have this three generation of a family watching a
show together.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
That's really the star that I really like doing. And
it's a joy, you know, looking.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Out sort of often I'm on stage just before the
show and I sort of peak through the curtain and
see that, you know, three generations of a family waiting
to see the show star.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
That's lovely. That's a lovely thing to see.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Where is magic ed? I read that magic shows are
having a comeback?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Is that true? So we we have the license for
now you see me live. Previously to that, I created
the show called The Illusionists, which I think is probably.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Most Yeah, it was on Broadway in it and it
was at the Sydney Opera House, and I think it
played four hundred cities across the world. And that's closed
down around the time of the pandemic, and then recently
now you See Me, which is the big magic franchise
and Lions Gates about magicians that try and rob a
bank using sort of heist, and we very luckily got
(12:40):
the license and lines Gate we're invited to take a
look at that. So we opened recently at the Sydney
Opera House. It's about to open in London. It's extraordinarily
well in Sydney this summer, and it's about to open
the MNGM Grand in Las Vegas in October. So it
is really having a resurgence right now, and I think,
(13:00):
you know, it's a it's a joy to be a
part of it.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You're incredibly busy, Simon. You're also about to open Game
of Thrones, I believe in a couple of weeks. So
I would imagine that being successful at this career also
you need to be very good at juggling a lot
of balls in the year.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I definitely exact.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
I mean, I do have, you know, an enormously amazing
team like I do do the juggling, but they also do.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
A lot more of the juggling.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
I mean, I can imagine my team has spread around
the world, So I don't really have an office.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I have like people that work literally sort.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Of my partners and my co creators work everywhere from
Brisbane to Los Angeles to London to South of France,
so it's it's quite a widespread team and you.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Know, that's really amazing.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
And so they do do a lot of the heavy
lifting in terms of like I have the idea and
then I kind of let them run with it and
I sort of come and own it and skip away
in it. But it's and my wife actually is the
personive Directorcalis.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Which is incredible. So we she was the director of
my shows for ten.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Years and then we both start having a family and
she took time off to be like a full time mom,
and then a couple of years ago she said, I
really really want to engage a part of my brain again,
and so she now is what the co director of Circulus,
So it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
She's unbelievably excited to come to Aucklands because it's a fecit.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
City, so she'll be coming in a couple of months
time to open the show and she's over the moon
about it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Oh fantastic, Simon. It's been a real pleasure to talk
to you this morning. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Absolutely, I can't wait for you to see the show.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Sick Ellis is coming to Auckland's Civic Theater from August
twenty eighth to September.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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