Carnival Diablo Celebrates 2nd Anniversary

By Barry Coulter

After a wild and wooly two year life, one of Calgary's most notorious performance acts will put on its anniversary show this weekend at the Garry Theatre and enter a new phase in it's existance.

Over 10,000 people have been to Carnival Daiblo since it began performing in 1992, bringing a new experience in entertainment to Calgary.
" The past two years has been a growing period for Diablo," says Scott McClelland, founder and front man of the sideshow."The dream has taken it's shape and form."
Carnival Diablo celebrates it's second year anniversary on April 1st and 2nd at the Garry Theatre. It will be the first theatre show ever for Diablo, who have put on 260 shows since thier first performance in the Old Liqour Board store on 5th street on April 1st two years ago.
All of these shows have been in Calgary with the exception of one trip to Vancouver in December.

As well as McClelland, Carnival Diablo is composed of Eric Everlen, who has been with the troupe for 9 months, and Lady Julianna, who joined in time for the Vancouver trip.Billing themselves as the Ultimate Sideshow, they present over 20 performances, such as the bed of nails, the human dartboard, the human blockhead and THE IMPALER.

"We put the show back in sideshow," says McClelland." We want the audience to indulge in the decadence and unusual horrific world of sideshow."

The times are changing for Diablo, however. They have been receiving international critical acclaim and their days of stictly local perfomance may well be at an end. They have people interested in them from such far-flung places as England and China, and are expected to appear on the cover of Omni Magazine in two months time. They expect to be touring with their own midway and big tent before the decade is half over.
Carnival Diablo is modelled after the touring circus side shows of the 19th century, that first appeared in the 1850's. They were often called 'mud shows', after the dirt floors in the tents where they were held, or '10 in one' shows (10 shows for the price of one).
They reached their peak in the early 20th century, with such names as Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers.
Side Shows were a decadent form of vaudeville, embodying a wide variety of perfomances and sights based around the bizarre and imagination-defying feats were the side shows' stock in trade. Carnival Diablo has based its own attitude around this tradition.
"Side shows were a legitimate form of entertainment for a long time," says McClelland. "They became progressively more 'circussy, and by the end of the 19th century they'd begun to go to seed."
What used to be the common traveling entertainment fell out of fashion so as to disappear entirely. McClelland and Carnival Diablo have been on the cutting edge of a recent renaisance in the art form.
"I truly believe," says McClelland, "that there is a resurgence of the need to see live entertainment. People are getting tired of the passive entertainment of the media, and are looking for something more immediate, intimate, and interactive. That's what we're offering."
"We want the audience to feel that they are walking into a time warp-into a time when there was no mass media: where superstition prevailed."

McClelland's vocation runs deep in his bones. His grandfather ran the largest travelling show of its kind. Based out of Saskatchewan, Professor N.P. Lew'Chuck's Travelling Vaudeville and Midway shows toured North America from 1920 to 1968.
Lew'Chuk was McClelland's mentor, introducing him to magic and vaudevillian performance at an early age. "My grandfather ran a large side show, as well as a vaudeville and midway," says McClelland. "I'd been doing the vaudeville aspect of his life for years, and now I'm doing the side show part."

McClelland, who has performed Vaudeville and magic for 15 years, as well doing special effects and make-up for movies and midway haunted houses, moved back to Calgary from Toronto in 1988. "I got the germ of the idea for Carnival Diablo," McClelland says. "In 1991 I went to L.A. for a month's holidays. It was there I got the ideas worked out."
Carnival Diablo opened the doors of its space in the Old Liquor Store on April 1st, 1991. Immediately successful, they perfomed almost nightly in the space for six months, when McClelland decided there was more income to be made touring around town, performing in bars such as Sparky's, the Banke, and the Warehouse.
Professor N.P. Lew'Chuk's Travelling Midway and Vaudeville Show is sitting in its entirety on a farm near Yorkton, Saskatchewan. It is McClelland's goal in the near future to bring it back to life, fixing up the ferris wheel, the carousel, and the other trappings of his grandfather's vocation. "All I need is the tent," says McClelland. "I hope to be able to acquire it after our show this weekend."

McClelland's grandfather will no doubt be present on the weekend.