Michael Flannigan:
A Life of Invention
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Chapter 7

Zanzibar's Freak Festival (1829 - 1833)

African-born muscleman Montgomery Zanzibar found success early in his career by juggling diminutive Victorian ladies.

By 1829, Michael Flannigan had grown tired of wandering the cobbled streets of Europe, and yearned to return to his beloved British Isles. His hopes for the Vibraphonic Bellows had been dashed, and his experience in the Sultanate of Khabstakan had left a bad taste in his mouth. Even the continued success of his patented Pinnepedia Elixir could not buoy his spirits.(1) Only the continued enmity of King George IV resulting from the Infamous Seal Penis Incident kept Flannigan from crossing the English Channel to return home.

Fortunately for Flannigan - although less so for the King - all that changed on June 26, 1830. On that fateful day, King George IV died after a series of strokes brought on a hemorrhage in his stomach. This opened the door for Flannigan to return to England, and he enthusiastically seized the opportunity. However, on returning to London he quickly found that the King's death had not solved all his problems, as he still had enemies in high places.(2)

Understandably, Michael Flannigan was anxious to avoid trouble, and his first instinct was to lay low, go to ground, and drop out of sight. Drawing on the advice of his old friend Desmond "Curry" Riffles, the old India hand and British army assassin, that the best way to hide is to do so in plain sight(3), Flannigan chose a less subtle path. As military analysts differ about the efficacy of martial strategies, so do Chesleyan scholars diverge about the good sense of Flannigan's choice of camouflage: the traveling circus known as Zanzibar's Freak Festival.

Zanzibar's sideshow was known for having rather more Bearded Ladies than was absolutely necessary.

The African-born muscleman Montgomery Zanzibar (jokingly referred to in some circles as the legal firm of Bigg, Black and Scottish), was the ringmaster of a small but renowned circus that traveled from tiny town to minuscule village throughout northern England. In addition to profiling his own prodigious physique, Zanzibar's sideshow was known for having rather more Bearded Ladies than was absolutely necessary, as well as a livestock juggler, an India rubber man(4), and a gent who swallowed butter knives. However, the circus was short one key component: a clown. This was the role into which Michael Flannigan stepped, with no little trepidation. After all, he wondered, who would find an inventor funny?

Flannigan could not have predicted how popular his act would be over the next three years. As the circus traveled to cultural hotspots such as Scunthorpe, Swinton, Glossop and Bootle, Flannigan demonstrated his latest inventions in his guise as Bill Frowne the Science Clown. To the delight of the audience each night, Flannigan's ill-conceived devices would inevitably - by design for once - blow up and injure someone, generally due to a catastrophic cranial collision. For some reason that Flannigan was never completely able to fathom, the audiences found this hilariously funny. Thankfully for the financial health of the Freak Festival, Zanzibar's legal skills staved off more than one serious liability case.(5)

At one time the Freak Festival also had a team of acrobats. Seeing the wild applause that Flannigan's head-injury prone show elicited, the trapeze artists changed the name of their act from "the Flying Zanzibars" to the "Soaring Skull Splitters". The first show was a rousing hit, as judged by the applause and laughter. There was no second show.

During this time, Flannigan remained safe from the royal retribution he feared; however, he was far from happy. As is so often the case with clowns and other funnymen, there was a side of Michael Flannigan that wept each night even as the crowds were roaring with laughter. While mirth and merriment were the order of the day for the paying public, Flannigan was privately despondent. In fact, standing at the rail of the ferry to the Isle of Man one desolate winter's day in 1833, Flannigan thought seriously of once more hurling himself into the sea, this time without the benefit of a Bosun's Bar to keep him afloat.

Despite having forsworn women entirely several times in the last few chapters of his biography - to the extent of becoming celibate, even when it came to the dubious but convenient charms of the Bearded Ladies - Flannigan still secretly hoped to one day find true love. Gazing into the icy waters of the Irish Sea, though, he was ready to give up. He had always thought the love of his life would be right around the corner.

For once, Flannigan was right. As the circus wagons rolled off the ferry into the Town of Douglas on the Isle of Man, the woman who would become his life's great passion was just around the corner at Tossie Flossingham's Coach and Horses Inn, reclining on top of a grand piano.

--"Scholarship" by the Flyboy

Next: The Manx Minx

Notes:

1. However, the concoction popularly known as "stiffy juice" continued to raise hopes and inflate expectations for many European men. At the time, a popular commercial jingle for the elixir told the uplifting tale: "When I'm Up, I Can't Get Down." [back]

2. It was suspected in royal circles that George's hemorrhage was the result of an overdose of stiffy juice. [back]

3. For example, at the time of the Infamous Seal Penis Incident, Riffles was in the middle of a nine day stint disguised as a potted palm in the Sultana's palace foyer. [back]

4. Flannigan's fast friendship with the India rubber man, and the cornucopia of flexible Flanniganalia that resulted, is detailed in the fine monograph "The Rubber Barons." [back]

5. Flannigan used Zanzibar's legal services many times in the years that followed. The fact that the huge Black Scotsman was completely ignorant of patent law may have been a contributing factor to Flannigan's inability to secure credit for his many pioneering inventions. [back]