Fun on the bus?

Torch bearing stilt walkers heralded the big event

The annual Cluny winter spectacle was held last week, it was freezing cold and foggy and not an evening I wanted to go out in, but as last year had been so spectacular, we felt it was worth braving the cold.

After a misunderstanding on our part about the time of the show, we arrived in Cluny far too early, we quickly saw the light and sound “happening”, visited the Christmas market and treated ourselves to a currywurst and chips from one of the stalls in the market square, which very good indeed. Still with time to spare and with feet that were starting to feel the beginning effects of frostbite, we set off to our favourite bar and quickly warmed up on mulled wine. When we heard the band leading the torch lit procession in the main street, we headed back to the market place for the main show.

Tightrope walking on top of a bus

This year the same performing troupe was being used under a different name, they were called the “Funambus” - a witty French name to show that they were using a bus to do their show. The show itself started off by the bus being “dragged” into the arena by a girl with a long pigtail (a bit bizarre but hey, live and let live) the bus then went totally crazy and started careering around its designated area, not much more than a meter from the audience and then it headed straight for a group of spectators, fortunately the brakes worked and it stopped about 1 foot short of them. Call me a kill-joy, but I felt it was a little irresponsible even without the ice that was present on the ground. It didn’t put me in a mood to really enjoy what was going on after that.

Human figurehead

Fortunately the bus then stopped and the human part of the show started. All of the action took place on a tightrope on top of the bus, it was without a doubt technically very skilful and very well executed, but for more than half an hour with temperatures at about minus 3 it was too much for a lot of the audience and numbers dwindled. We stayed to the bitter end and the finale was quite good with the tightrope walkers walking up and down while the bus was moving and the female performer acting like a ship’s figurehead, hanging on to the front of the bus.

I think that it is great that such a small town as Cluny invests in putting on a show at this time of year. It gets us all out of our houses, enjoying ourselves on a miserable bitter evening and we will certainly be back next year.