Tickling tigers one day, and cracking jokes to expectant crowds the next, Bob Carlisle was a circus showman, agent, clown and big cat tamer. In the third episode of our new series on this larger-than-life character of the Victorian age, David Musgrove speaks to historian John Woolf to consider Carlisle’s hair-raising life in the travelling circus, and how it helps us to understand the world of Victorian show business.
The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Caesar: Death of a Dictator | Trailer
Victoria's armpit and 'giant' bones: body parts that changed history
The American Gilded Age: everything you wanted to know
Books and war: from James Bond to leaflet bombing
Shakespeare: Past Master | 4. Hamlet
Medieval manners: social etiquette in the Middle Ages
Marshal Pétain: Vichy France in the dock
1950s Britain: everything you wanted to know
The dangerous road to the Bastille
Shakespeare: Past Master | 3. Julius Caesar
Du Fu: China's greatest poet
Cities that turbocharged art history
Astronomy history: everything you wanted to know
The dark side of Dickens
Shakespeare: Past Master | 2. Romeo and Juliet
Thanksgiving: everything you wanted to know
The dangers of medieval travel
The Princes in the Tower: has the mystery been solved?
The Pre-Raphaelites: everything you wanted to know
Resistance in the Second World War
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Dan Snow’s History Hit
Gone Medieval
History Unplugged Podcast
History Daily
Not Just the Tudors