Clara’s Verdict
There is something enduringly pleasurable about Enid Blyton at full stretch in the adventure mode, and the Mr Galliano stories are among her most sustained and least discussed achievements. These three novels – written between 1938 and 1942 – occupy a different register from the Famous Five or Secret Seven. The circus setting gives Blyton room for something more episodic, more sensory, and frankly more exciting: live animals, dangerous stunts, itinerant characters with mysteries of their own, and the perpetual thrill of belonging somewhere most children would never be permitted to go. Over fourteen hours, Joshua Higgott narrates the complete first collection in this Circus series, and the result is proper children’s storytelling in the best tradition – unhurried, generous, and absolutely convinced that what it is describing matters.
About the Audiobook
Young Jimmy Brown and his family join Mr Galliano’s famous circus, and across the course of three novels Jimmy grows from a wide-eyed newcomer into a genuine member of the troupe. He encounters cheeky chimpanzees, kindly elephants, a fearsome tiger, and Lucky – a small dog of considerable personality and plot significance. The world of the circus is rendered with affectionate detail: the daily routines, the rivalries between performers, the politics of the big top, and the specific pleasure of belonging to something extraordinary.
The three novels collected here are Mr Galliano’s Circus (1938), Hurrah for the Circus (1939), and Circus Days Again (1942). As a bumper collection of twenty-six stories in total, this audiobook gives you the full arc in one continuous listen – or, more practically, the perfect chapter-by-chapter bedtime listen across several weeks. The episodic structure makes it exceptionally well-suited to being paused and resumed without losing momentum.
It is worth acknowledging that some of Blyton’s language from this period has not aged smoothly – the books contain vocabulary and assumptions that belong to their time and will require a word from an adult reader when sharing with younger children. That caveat aside, the core of the storytelling – the moral seriousness about loyalty, kindness to animals, the value of belonging – remains entirely intact and largely admirable.
The Narration
Joshua Higgott is a reliable narrator for younger listeners, and his performance here does precisely what it needs to: he differentiates characters clearly, keeps the pacing brisk without rushing, and avoids the slightly patronising quality that some children’s audiobook narrators fall into. The circus atmosphere – the noise and energy and underlying edge of danger – comes through well. He does not attempt to be theatrical, which is the right call: Blyton’s prose generates its own theatricality, and the narrator’s job is to carry it rather than amplify it.
The fourteen-hour duration also deserves mention in relation to the listening experience. Unlike shorter audiobooks, this collection unfolds at a pace that allows the world of the circus to feel genuinely inhabited rather than sketched. Jimmy’s relationships with the animals, the other performers, and eventually the audiences develop naturally over time, and the accumulated weight of those relationships is what makes the later books in the trilogy more emotionally satisfying than the opener. The length is a virtue, not an obstacle.
What Readers Say
The collection holds a rating of 4.5 from 78 reviews, and the response is dominated by nostalgia – the generous, active kind rather than the merely wistful. “My favourite book as a child. I enjoyed reading it again as an adult. Made me want to run away and join the circus,” wrote one listener. Another bought it as a great-granddaughter’s birthday gift, recalling having it read aloud chapter by chapter at school: “The anticipation was great. I didn’t want to wait another week.” A third noted their thirty-two-year-old daughter’s childhood copy had passed through cousins and was now being introduced to the next generation. This is the rarest endorsement: a book that holds across four generations in the same family without losing anything essential.
Who Should Listen?
Ideal for children between roughly seven and eleven, though the cross-generational appeal is unusually strong – adults who grew up with Blyton will find the pleasure of sharing these stories with their own children or grandchildren is a considerable part of what’s on offer. The episodic structure means it tolerates the rhythms of family life without complaint: you can pause for a week and return without confusion. Alongside the Famous Five, this is Blyton at her most imaginative and most generous; if you have only encountered her through the better-known series, this collection will remind you how wide her range actually was. A classic in the truest, least-diluted sense of the word.
If you’re looking for a long-format children’s series that will last across several weeks of evening listening and maintain genuine momentum throughout, this collection is one of the best options available in the classic British children’s canon. It holds up significantly better than many of its contemporaries, and the circus setting feels, if anything, more exotic and more compelling to children in the present day than it did in 1938 when the world was full of travelling circuses.
Listen to Mr Galliano’s Circus Story Collection on Audible UK – also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
