NEWS FEED
It’s an age old adage that everybody wants to run away and join the circus but Stefanie Usher from Sandford did just that.
Well she didn’t exactly run away, but her dream became a reality she joined Gerry Cottles Rock Circus.
Stefanie, aged 26, visited every circus that came near her home when she was young but never believed she would become a major star in one. Educated in Lytchett Matravers and Lychett Minster, she left school and took an array of jobs including a waitress in TGI Fridays and in a pub. She even swept up hair in a hairdressers, and that is where she got her inspiration for her circus act.
She explained: ” When people left the hairdressers and it was raining we would give them a complimentary umbrella and it stuck in my mind. I then saw the BBC indent ad with 4 girls on silks and thought, I’d really love to do that.’
“I went to a circus training school and was taught circus skills by Polly Cottle daughter of circus legend Gerry Cottle. I wanted to do something different and suddenly I thought about the umbrellas so I devised a complete original aerial act on a flying umbrella. It’s like Mary Poppins goes to Las Vegas’.
Stefanie returns to Dorset next week when Gerry Cottles Rock Circus comes to Dorchester from 28 July to 1 August.
