A Rollercoaster Fringe ride with 'the world's best juggler'

Many children who express a desire to join the circus are met with polite nods followed by a firm steer in a different direction. Not in Wes Peden’s household in upstate New York. Growing up as the son of a professional juggler, he had daily reminders that a circus life can indeed pay the bills.

“I was very lucky having a dad that juggled because I constantly saw it as an extremely normal career path,” says Peden. “He never pushed me, but would buy me juggling balls and show me books and video tapes. And I would watch him rehearse, build new props, sew costumes and edit the music to fit just right. And it's funny because I meet a lot of other circus artists who talk about the start of their career and parents saying they’re not sure if it’s a safe option. But I had a real example from an early age of what it would mean to do this job, and the professionalism required to do it well.”

Peden began juggling at the age of five and by the time he was eight, he was sold on it being his future job, spending every spare hour honing his craft. At 18, he moved to Sweden to study circus skills, remaining there until a few years ago when he relocated to France. Along the way, Peden has been voted ‘The World’s Most Popular Juggler’ no fewer than ten times, and is described by Sean Gandini (of the renowned Gandini Juggling) as “the best juggler in the world”. Do such accolades provide an unadulterated ego boost or pile on the pressure?

“It's changed over the years,” says Peden. “When I first started being voted very high I was in my twenties and really pushing the physical limits of juggling, so it made me feel great that everyone appreciated what I was doing. Then a few years later, I started to feel a pressure to keep bringing out new, surprising, next level stuff. But more recently I’ve been able to let go of the pressure. It's a weird guessing game trying to imagine what people might want to see next, and sometimes I’ve found it quite limiting. So now, I want to use juggling as my craft to say different things and just be true to myself.”

For his new solo show, Rollercoaster, Peden was inspired by an old 1990s computer game he rediscovered during the pandemic. Playing ‘Rollercoaster Tycoon’, he noticed similarities between using momentum to build pathways in the game, and assembling a juggling trick. It also led him to create the hardest routine he’s ever performed. “In part of the show I do very difficult and unique tricks with five clubs that I've never seen anybody else do on stage,” Peden explains. “And there’s a point where if I nail the five club trick, the narrative of the show goes one way and things continue in that direction. And if I drop the trick, then the show goes in a different direction. So it makes it into a kind of ‘choose your own adventure’ scene.”

While Rollercoaster may be a solo show, Peden is not alone on stage. A myriad of props join him on the journey, and hearing him talk about these inanimate objects, you’d almost think they were living creatures. “During the creation of the show you get so in tune with these different objects,” he says. “And I think it's very important as

a contemporary juggler, not just to think how do I force the object to do that, but to consider what does this object want to do? What does it do best? If I'm working with a ball that bounces and rolls, I should allow it to do the things it's made for. If I’m working with a tube that wants to be long, let's embrace that side of it. So I try to have a shared authorship with each object and let it say what it needs to say. And to make each routine a conversation between me and the object to see how we can work to each other's strengths.”

Rollercoaster, Assembly Roxy, 5pm, until 26 August.