In 1894 Mr Tudor wrote this letter:
From
TUDOR’S NEW CIRCUS
South Shields
Sole Proprietor: MR. W. TUDOR
Feb 1st 1894
To The Borough Surveyor Gateshead
Dear Sir,
My manager will be at your office at the Town Hall about 12 o’clock on Friday morning Feby 2nd with plans of building I propose erecting at Sunderland Road Gateshead as a Circus. It is the same building I have used for 2 seasons at South Shields, passed by Mr Hall, Surveyor. I intend to take down at the termination of the present season, and remove it to Gateshead, provided permission is granted by the Authorities. I shall be glad if you can make it convenient to meet him at that hour
Yours Truly
W. Tudor
Circus proprietor
Permission was granted and the building was erected on this site, but by 1897 it was upgraded and converted to become the Standard Theatre.
In the early days of circus the focus was on trick horse riding, which explains the stables and tack rooms on the plans for this building. But I'm more interested in the change over the years to human skills, especially juggling and object manipulation. To find the final coordinates for this cache you'll need to watch some videos of my favourite acts and get the information listed. Think of this as six stage multi which you can do from the comfort of your computer screen on a day with bad weather! I hope that you enjoy the videos.
The cache is at N54° 57.ABC W001° 35.DEF
Luke Wilson was a modern great, known for his precision, attention to detail, clarity of thought and exceptional teaching. He died tragically young in 2012.
The number of minutes on the clock in this video when he kicks up to juggling four clubs gives you "A".
Michael Moschen, the juggler shown in this in this video, was the great innovator of the late 80s and early 90s, and was possibly the first to take juggling from the low-brow world and try to make it a bit more up-market and arty. Make sure you've got your speakers on to get the best from this video.
Multiply the number of sides on the big prop by two to get "B".
Peden, Pezzo and Elmnert are among the innovators today - pushing pure technical ability in new directions by eschewing the standard tricks and constantly innovating.
Freeze the action in this video with the timer at 48 seconds and count the number of clubs. Subtract 9 to get "C".
Alex Barron is the current world record holder for juggling balls (for it to count as a "juggle" it's got to be twice the number of balls) and here's the evidence. It's not showy, or well staged with a nice costume, but it's an amazing feat of strength, accuracy and timing!
Take the number of "years of pain" and add six to give you "D".
Before we get too hung up on all this serious stuff Michael Davis shows some brilliant comic timing in this video.
Take the number of minutes on the clock when he first passes the apple out into the audience and subtract four to get "E".
Neidert, the star of this short clip released by Thomas Edison, takes us almost all the way back to the time of the circus building in Gateshead. It was released in 1"F"99.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.
Congratualtions to duncanhoyle and lazyjuggler (who's often too lazy to log his finds!) on first to find.