The Greatest Showman was the big inspiration for Max Fox who is now on the road with Cirque: The Greatest Show.
It was a film which resonated so much with him about his own life in showbiz, says Max who is both producer and lead singer for the tour which plays The Hawth Crawley on June 22 (also White Rock, Hastings, August 18; Brighton Centre, August 25; Portsmouth Guildhall, September 30-October 1; and The Capitol, Horsham, October 7). He is promising us a night like no other, a world where the very best of musical theatre showstoppers meets jaw-dropping circus spectacular, a “world that explodes into colour as everyone’s favourite West End and Broadway hits combine with breath-taking, amazing performances, incredible contortionists and thrilling feats of agility and flair” in a brand-new variety spectacular.
It was a film which resonated so much with him about his own life in showbiz, says Max who is both producer and lead singer for the tour which plays The Hawth Crawley on June 22 (also White Rock, Hastings, August 18; Brighton Centre, August 25; Portsmouth Guildhall, September 30-October 1; and The Capitol, Horsham, October 7). He is promising us a night like no other, a world where the very best of musical theatre showstoppers meets jaw-dropping circus spectacular, a “world that explodes into colour as everyone’s favourite West End and Broadway hits combine with breath-taking, amazing performances, incredible contortionists and thrilling feats of agility and flair” in a brand-new variety spectacular.
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FunTranscript
00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely
00:05 to speak to Max Fox from the show Cirque, The Greatest Show, which is coming to Crawley
00:10 among plenty of other places on a huge tour, more than 200 dates this year, but it's coming
00:15 to the whole thing Crawley on June the 22nd. Now Max, you were saying that this started
00:20 with your love of a fabulous film, a favourite of mine too, The Greatest Showman. What happened?
00:26 How did that show resonate with you so much? Yeah, so I mean, when the show came out in
00:33 2017, I went to the cinema to watch it and I was just obsessed from the get go.
00:38 How many times did you go? Oh my goodness, it must have been at least
00:45 six times that I went. That counts as obsession. And then what happened?
00:53 And then just kind of watching the show, it resonated a little bit to my life of being
00:57 a performer and, you know, having all these kind of ups and downs and trying to climb
01:03 that, trying to climb that trajectory. And I think that it just resonated to me that
01:10 way. And I thought, let's just, let's just try and put a show together that's got The
01:15 Greatest Showman in, which is more of a family based show. And once we started, we just realised
01:22 that, you know, absolutely anybody enjoys this show, no matter if they're old or young.
01:27 Yeah. And it sounds like it all did have to go a little bit on hold for a while because
01:31 it was unfortunate timing. You were getting ready with this show just before the pandemic
01:35 hit. What did you do during the pandemic? Did you have the chance to rethink things,
01:41 work on the show or did you just put it to one side?
01:44 Yeah, so we did have to take a hiatus, of course, like a lot of companies with our big
01:49 shows, there's obviously a lot of cost attributed with putting on a show such as this. So we
01:56 focused on some other things, we did some driving events during Covid. Yeah, came back
02:02 full throttle. We joined a national company called Entertainers, who have shows like Magic
02:10 of Motown, Last Love. And we co-produced a bigger version of this show, which is basically
02:18 circus it is today. So musical theatre and combining that with different circus acts.
02:23 It sounds a perfect combination. As you're saying, it's unique. No one's done this before,
02:27 have they?
02:28 That's right. Yeah. There's nothing like it on the market. So we feel, you know, we're
02:33 excited to be able to bring a little bit of a new concept that hasn't been shown in the
02:38 UK before.
02:39 Yeah. And great response from the audience, as you were saying.
02:43 Wow, absolutely. Incredible response. Yeah, we've been selling out in theatres up and
02:47 down the country. We're just continuing the tour and keeping it going. We're going into
02:53 24 as well.
02:55 Brilliant. And worth mentioning the fact you're not just the producer, you're the lead singer
03:00 as well, aren't you?
03:01 Yeah, so I've kind of got two roles in one. So I deal with everything beforehand and everything
03:08 on stage as well.
03:09 Buck stops with you. Fantastic. Really nice to speak to you. Good luck with the show and
03:15 all those dates up and down the country. Great to talk to you.
03:17 >> Thanks, Phil.
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