The towering tree men at BIC

Manama : Gone are those days, when children were happy seeing men in the costumes of Spider-Man, Superman or The Transformers. John and James, who hail from the Bristol, Southwest England, are here at the Bahrain International Circuit to entertain the motor fans with their heavy tree costumes and ‘Treemendous’ is what they call themselves.

John started his career as part of various street performances such as fire acts, living statues and juggling.  After years of practising, now he has come up with this act called as ‘Treemendous’. James, on the other hand, was a self-taught juggler and street performer. He was also a street performer, until he planned to move as professional and joined a circus school in Bristol called The Circomedia.

“We were looking at the major companies and the costumes they chose for business. We noticed that many of them chose robots or movie characters such as Harry Potter and Star Wars,” said John told DT News. 

“So we thought that we would choose a different outfit that people can get closer too. We found the idea of a tree costume very impressive and it fits into different types of events and still remains the favourite among kids and families. Moreover, it gives a message to save trees,” he added.

The costumes and ideas are designed by the duo together, and they have to practise heavily to get themselves on the dress and maintain the balance. They both have hands on know-how with much bigger costumes than trees, which included costumes of different fantasy characters with more weight and metal.

Speaking about the their title, John said, “Since we have been together for nine years, and the tree costume is our own idea, we thought that we will choose a name with words like ‘Tree’ and ‘Men’ within it, so we decided to use the title “Treemendous.”

This is not their first visit to the Middle East. Earlier, they have done two shows in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia.  

Speaking about the response of the people here in Bahrain, the performers told DT News that they love the people here. 

“Our act has been well received by the children and they love to talk to us and get photographed with us. And for us, this is the first performance we are doing in front of a motor-cultural audience and we are quite happy about that. Treemendous is our latest project and probably the one that gave us more excitement than any other. In fact, we would like to come back here next year as well,” John added.