Cast member profile: Howard Morley

Born in Sheffield in 1967, Howie had no formal training in circus but developed a huge passion for the art after seeing Norman Barrett and his performing budgies in the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome in 1973.

He was then further inspired by seeing both Archaos and Nofit State Circus at Glastonbury Festival sometime around 1990 and decided to set on course to join the latter. The opportunity came about seven years later when he volunteered on one of their large-scale community shows as a scaffolder and ended up with a large role in the show.

Since then he has been putting up the big top, loading lorries, entertaining the crowds and travelling the world with NoFit State, culminating in a headline performance at Montreal's first ever festival of circus and a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival.

His speciality is eccentric characterisation combined with the classic circus skills of balance and manipulation.

Q and A

What is your proudest achievement?
My baby daughter Harper.

What do you enjoy most about performing?
The look of joy on the faces of the audience as they are leaving one of our shows.

What is your greatest fear?
Heights, spiders, deep water, snakes, the dark, failure, all the usual stuff.

What was your most memorable performance?
Solo support act to the UK Subs, Flappers NiteKlub, Worthing, 1992.

Who do you most admire?
Roy Castle, Ian Dury, Peter Sellers and David Attenborough.

What are you looking forward to about performing at Eden?
Just being there, a tiny part of an inspirational project.