From a Norwich workhouse to performing as "The American Voltigeur" - Pablo Fanque, or William Darby as he was born, was a star of 1830s circus in Britain. Nearly a hundred years later one of the names topping the bill was Lillian Leitzel. Kate Holmes is also an aerial performer and she shares her research into female aerialists with John Woolf, author of Black Victorians. Plus the presenter Shahidha Bari is also joined by New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton who compares researching early music hall and pantomime performers with the experience of taking part in a professional panto and by novelist Lianne Dillsworth whose novel Theatre of Marvels imagines a Black British actress who performs at Crillick's Theatre as the "Great Amazonia".

Producer: Sofie Vilcins

Black Victorians: Hidden in History by John Woolf and Keshia N Abraham is out now. John Woolf has also published The Wonders: : Lifting the Curtain on the Freak Show, Circus and Victorian Age

You can find more programmes on Free Thinking about Victorian life

Swing High short documentary film was directed by Jack Cummings, and was produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1932.