Roll up, it's Giffords Circus in town, and GILES WOODFORDE talks to co-founder Nell Gifford

"Have you come by boat?" asked the man with a quiff of bright red hair. It was a fair question, for he was sitting at an outdoor café near the Kennet and Avon Canal in Newbury. I had stumbled upon the Giffords Circus cast breakfast, and the quiff belonged to the clown, known simply as Tweedy: "He makes me laugh from morning till night, even at breakfast time. I have to tell him to stop being funny because I've got to eat my breakfast." Nell Gifford laughed as we walked towards the nearby Victoria Park, where the Giffords Circus big top had been set up as part of this year's Newbury Spring Festival.

Beginning in 2000, Nell and her husband Toti built up Giffords from scratch. We arrived at a beautifully painted showman's living wagon, just like those that were once parked round the back of St Giles Fair. It's home to the Giffords, and Toti discovered it as a dilapidated wreck. He rebuilt it himself, with no previous experience of carpentry.

"Living in here teaches you to be tidy," Nell remarked as we sat down inside, while a miniature dachshund (just the right size for the space) took up residence in front of the tiled fireplace. It was now 10am, but Nell's day had begun quite a bit earlier.

"I've been in the stables since 7.30, practising all the horses," she explained. "I've also had to deal with some management issues. Then, as it's a nice morning, I took everyone out for breakfast." Several websites describe Nell as "a pony-mad Oxford graduate". But not everyone labelled with that description goes on to marry and found a circus with their husband. How did Giffords come about?

"I joined a circus in America when I was 18," Nell replied. "It was called Circus Flora, and belonged to my brother's brother-in-law, Gerald Balding, the son of racehorse trainer Toby Balding. I did various skivvying jobs there - painting lorries, fixing up lights, things like that. It was work experience, basically, but I really loved it. So although I took up my place to read English at New College, Oxford, I already knew that I wanted to make the circus my life."

How many people, I wondered, said: "You're mad", when Nell announced that she was going to make the circus her life?

"Not that many. Most of them were other people in the circus industry. They knew what I was letting myself in for. A few did say: You're wasting your time and money', so I just stopped asking people's opinions. Sadly, my mum's very ill, and doesn't know who I am, but my dad's very supportive. He works as a film director, so he identifies with the circus environment, the artists, and so on."

In true circus fashion, there's plenty of action to wind up audience enthusiasm at the beginning of the show. A comic policeman vainly attempts to keep Tweedy the Clown in order. He has his work cut out, for he must, in friendly fashion, also prevent small members of the audience from climbing into the ring, as well as stopping Houdini the Bantam from escaping under the seats.

Soon Houdini is joined by a haughty-looking goose, and by Kwabana Lindsay, who plays the violin at the same time as crossing the big top on a high wire. A hawk swoops in and settles high up, warming his feathers on the floodlights overhead. That's the signal for Nell Gifford to make her first entrance on a magnificent, prancing horse - at the performance I saw, I heard many a small girl in the audience gasp with envy as she appeared.

Then comes a heart-stopping moment while the hawk decides whether he's going to forsake his cosy eyrie, and fly down to settle on Nell's wrist.

But Nell plainly doesn't believe in just making a grand entrance. She joins in with the singing, plays a drum - the show is big on music - carries props on and off, and generally helps out: very different from some bosses or principal performers I can think of.

Giffords Circus doesn't simply present a string of acts, linked in traditional style by the clown. There's also a storyline - this year it's called Caravan, a tale of love and marriage set at a gypsy horse fair around 1900.

"If you unpick one of our shows, you will find the traditional circus format," Nell explained. "But we've tried to do something that's more fluid, and more appealing to 21st-century sensibilities - you see things cut very fast on television, the speed of editing, the whole way the pieces are put together. So I've tried to cut things up, then tangle them together again. It is still a traditional circus, but we've put our own stamp on it.

"The clowning is traditional too, the timing, and skills required to make people laugh don't change. But we don't go in for a clown with garish make-up, big shoes, and a large red nose. That's more an American style."

As we talked, the sun streamed in through the caravan window and circus life seemed pretty idyllic. But what, I wondered, keeps Nell going when the big top has to be dismantled, sopping wet, on a rainy Saturday night?

"I really do like working with the horses, and just being with them in the mornings, before everyone's up. I like being able to concentrate on a specific thing, like getting your tack or your costume really right. It's so much better than being in an office. I find the people interesting too, like the Russian acrobats we've got this year, for instance. But against that is the stress of putting a show together. It's a fine line!"

Giffords Circus visits Stadhampton next Thursday until June 16, and Tackley, June 19-23. Tickets and details for both venues: 0845 459 7469.