Hi! My Covent Garden name is Sumo Badger, just Sumo to you.
I perform at Covent Garden as a comedy juggler - Tiger Bond.
Confused about the names?
My real name is Andy Wood and I live in an inner London suburb
with my wife Helen and my two children Marnie (four years old)
and Elsa (two years old). I started working as a street performer
in Covent Garden in 1995 with my brilliant street character
Tiger Bond - brother of James Bond.
Loads of jokes. Loads of juggling. Crazy stunts. Barefaced cheek.
That's all you need as long as you have the bravura to throw
yourself to the mercy of a vast horde of sightseeing public
who are hungry for entertainment but will chew you up and spit
you out for breakfast - if your show's not up to scratch!
Covent Garden is an amazing and world famous place to street
perform as you have a uniquely large (rumour has it they're
rich!) multicultural audience who may well speak up to 10 different
languages but generally know at least a little English, although
not necessarily. As part of the audience participation knife
throwing I used to choose a volunteer who could not speak English
so I could 1) Frighten the audience; 2) Demonstrate the great
fluency English people usually have at speaking English. If
you think of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) in Fawlty Towers you
are along the right lines.
Barefaced
cheek
2001 has been a good summer for the street performers with many
performers flying in from Australia. Lucky Rich the original
tattooed man; Space Cowboy, the young ozzie streetstar riding
high on a super successful world touring cabaret show; a couple
of Germans; the odd Spanish Clown; a Brazilian; some Israelis;
and a big return this summer for London's Doctor Stuart. After
appearing in the blockbuster movie The Fifth Element, this year
Doctor Stuart has amongst many things worked on a huge corporate
project with US film director Spike Lee but he still found time
to work at Covent Garden. He knows what's good for him!
If you are interested in street entertaining and street entertainers
in Covent Garden, England or anywhere else in the world email
me at andy@candointernet.com
PHOTO GALLERY
For more photos of street entertainers in Covent Garden click here.
MORE ARTICLES
Regular Covent Garden performer Andy Wood gives us his 'View from the Piazza': 123
Mr Punch arrived in Covent Garden 340 years ago. Glyn Edwards tells his story: click here
Rex Boyd, originally from Kansas, USA, has spent a lot of time at Covent Garden off and on since 1988.
Click here to read his story.
