FLOSS & TANN ARE MY INSPIRATION.
Professor Elemental
Formerly known as Mental Floss Sideshow, the company was founded in the UK in 2005 by Karl & Lesley Thurston-Brown. It is presently on an extended engagement in southern Ontario, Canada.
The team create museum style exhibitions with an emphasis on storytelling & performance. Their humorous, interactive, reality-teasing installations are an eccentric invitation to all ages to celebrate the human imagination. The aim is to encourage the act of wonder by placing the audience in live, engaging environments that present the fantastic in the everyday & the everyday in the fantastic.
Karl & Lesley are truly enterprising in their commitment to their vision. For over 15 years they have been researching, designing, fabulating, constructing & presenting the curious endeavours of carnival impresario Professor Archibald Floss & snake oil peddler Dr. Charlotte Tann for their travelling shows. They’ve been seen on two continents in a wide variety of settings from the street & theatre stages to village greens & museums, they even appeared on a railway platform.
How does one get into this line of work? UK born Karl’s love of the curious began when he first read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Later he studied performing & fine arts at university & has spent 3 decades working in all aspects of theatre. As a girl, Ontario native Lesley daydreamed of her show folk ancestors travelling the fairgrounds of 19th century England. She studied English, Film & Communication Studies at university before exploring the fields of arts management & community arts. Largely a self-taught artist, her work is inspired by the unsung artisans who's talents set the stage for ‘all the fun of the fair.’
Their professional backgrounds include: Art, Event & Venue Management, Technical Theatre, Prop Making, Fine Art & Graphic Design. In 2005 Karl trained with Todd Robbins at Coney Island Sideshow School, USA. Lesley’s professional development includes a variety of courses pertaining to fairground art, storytelling & museums. They are firm in their conviction that one should never stop learning & never stop playing.
Karl & Lesley also moonlight as Entertainment Directors & Producers. Highlights include:
Floss & Tann’s Congress of Wonders, UK 2009 - an evening of variety, music & a penny arcade
The Absinthe Ball, UK 2010 - a decadent cabaret featuring music, sideshow, performing automata & DJs
Steam Era, Milton 2015-2016 - a traditional agricultural steam fair featuring a Flea Circus, Punch & Judy, steam-powered inventions, music & sideshow
Grand Canadian Steampunk Exposition, Niagara-on-the-Lake 2014-2018 - 3 day festival featuring international musicians, circus, dance, magic, puppetry, storytelling & their crowd pleasing variety show “The Hullaballo”.
The team create museum style exhibitions with an emphasis on storytelling & performance. Their humorous, interactive, reality-teasing installations are an eccentric invitation to all ages to celebrate the human imagination. The aim is to encourage the act of wonder by placing the audience in live, engaging environments that present the fantastic in the everyday & the everyday in the fantastic.
Karl & Lesley are truly enterprising in their commitment to their vision. For over 15 years they have been researching, designing, fabulating, constructing & presenting the curious endeavours of carnival impresario Professor Archibald Floss & snake oil peddler Dr. Charlotte Tann for their travelling shows. They’ve been seen on two continents in a wide variety of settings from the street & theatre stages to village greens & museums, they even appeared on a railway platform.
How does one get into this line of work? UK born Karl’s love of the curious began when he first read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Later he studied performing & fine arts at university & has spent 3 decades working in all aspects of theatre. As a girl, Ontario native Lesley daydreamed of her show folk ancestors travelling the fairgrounds of 19th century England. She studied English, Film & Communication Studies at university before exploring the fields of arts management & community arts. Largely a self-taught artist, her work is inspired by the unsung artisans who's talents set the stage for ‘all the fun of the fair.’
Their professional backgrounds include: Art, Event & Venue Management, Technical Theatre, Prop Making, Fine Art & Graphic Design. In 2005 Karl trained with Todd Robbins at Coney Island Sideshow School, USA. Lesley’s professional development includes a variety of courses pertaining to fairground art, storytelling & museums. They are firm in their conviction that one should never stop learning & never stop playing.
Karl & Lesley also moonlight as Entertainment Directors & Producers. Highlights include:
Floss & Tann’s Congress of Wonders, UK 2009 - an evening of variety, music & a penny arcade
The Absinthe Ball, UK 2010 - a decadent cabaret featuring music, sideshow, performing automata & DJs
Steam Era, Milton 2015-2016 - a traditional agricultural steam fair featuring a Flea Circus, Punch & Judy, steam-powered inventions, music & sideshow
Grand Canadian Steampunk Exposition, Niagara-on-the-Lake 2014-2018 - 3 day festival featuring international musicians, circus, dance, magic, puppetry, storytelling & their crowd pleasing variety show “The Hullaballo”.
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Tintype by The Tintype Studio & Posters by Mental Floss Sideshow