Confusion may reign here. This US TV special from 1986 is a straight retelling of the legendary ringmaster’s career, as portrayed by Burt ‘ulcer’ Lancaster, and is not to be mistaken for the BBC TV special from 1986, which was, of course, an all-singing, all-dancing retelling of the legendary ringmaster’s career, as portrayed by Michael ‘Knack’ Crawford. That one was called Barnum! With an exclamation mark, see? So we can’t launch into any pre-prepared anecdotes about when Peter Duncan took over from Crawford in the stage version and seemed to be doing numbers from the show on Blue Peter every week. But we can tell you that this Barnum features… hang on a minute… oh yes! A certain Rob Roy, better known as, erm, the voice of Pat off of David the Gnome.
