Britain's Clown Shortage: New Visa Rules Hit the Circus

[dcsmart]

Circus performers can twist themselves into pretzels and somersault through rings of fire, but even they are struggling to jump through new hoops set up by the U.K. immigration authorities. In November, the British Home Office introduced a points-based system to crack down on illegal immigration and create what its web site describes as "a significantly more straightforward and transparent structure." It's easy enough for foreign trapeze artists and acrobats to secure the requisite points for entry into Britain based on their unique skills. But ringmasters say that various problems with the new system - including faulty computer software and poorly trained embassy staff - are preventing international talent from reaching Britain's big tops.

"My season started in February," says Martin Lacey, owner of the Great British Circus, "and I've got comedy acrobats stranded in the Ukraine, and Mongolian horse riders who were refused their visas in Ulan Batur." The holes in his lineup have forced Lacey to draft last-minute substitutes. "Our Mexican clown is stuck in Mexico, so we've got a trapeze artist pretending to be a stooge just to get everybody out of trouble," he says. "It's a mess."

(And it's totally incompatible with the needs of Britain's circus sector. According to Malcolm Clay, secretary of the Association of Circus Proprietors of Great Britain, British circus schools don't produce artists at an acceptable standard, largely because their students refine skills like tightrope walking or fire-breathing as a hobby, not as part of a life-long career. As a result, British circuses rely on artists from countries with long-established histories of state-sponsored circus schools: they call on Argentina and Colombia for their renowned high wire acts, China and North Korea for acrobats, and Mongolia and Russia for horse riders. (Interestingly, they don't need to import bearded ladies.) Around 500 circus performers enter the U.K. annually, and roughly half of them must obtain short-term visas because they come from outside the European Union.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090306/wl_time/08599188354400

[treestar]

1. this kind of stuff is just so friggin' stupid

What a waste. One wonders how much of the economic crisis is attributable to this type of slowdown.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. This stupid new points system...

...is half of the reason I decided to leave the UK instead of looking for a new job when I got laid off. I could find immigration attorneys who understood the system *as written* but always got some variation of the response that "it doesn't matter what it says, but how the government implements it, and right now it's a mess and nobody knows how it works."