This year our collection reached 6,000 home movies, including this recent acquisition showing the raising of the Wirth's Circus big top, in the 1950s. Read more about our 2017 acquisitions: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/2017-nfsa | NFSA - National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

🎪 Did you know the site of Arts Centre Melbourne used to be home to a circus? Our conservators restored this scrapbook compiled by Wirth's Circus transport manager Charles West, which is filled with thousands of fascinating images from times gone by, and stories waiting to be discovered. Come make your own memories at our summer blockbuster, Circus 1903 this January in the State Theatre → https://brnw.ch/21wDvJs | Arts Centre Melbourne

5.1K views | Reel by NFSA - National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

In this clip from 1943, members of Wirth’s Circus and Zoo parade down the main street as a large crowd looks on. The parade includes elephants, clowns, performers on horseback and caged animals. In another shot, Shetland ponies are led by boys over a bridge towards the show ground. Wirth’s Circus was Australia’s largest and most prestigious circus company. For eight decades Wirth’s was billed as Australia’s own ‘Greatest Show on Earth’, and was a huge travelling circus with an international repu

Would you pay $119 to see this show? Back in the day, Wirths’ Circus occupied the site of Arts Centre Melbourne. Now a new production is harking back to the ‘greatest show on earth’. “There are a lot of parallels between what we tried to do with this show and the amazing shows of the early 1900s, of which Wirth’s was one,” said Circus 1903 creative producer Simon Painter. To read the full story by Jewel Topsfield, click the link in our bio. Video: Abbir Dib Photo: Circus 1903 | The Age