Costume designer Laurel Frank, along with “senior clown” Tim Coldwell, is one of the last two remaining founding members of Circus Oz – a 37-year labour of love.

She does other work, too, “but I always keep at least one eye out for Circus Oz”.

Frank and the other creatives have had their work cut out with a show that looks back to an earlier tradition of TV vaudeville, while looking forward to newer conventions. Hip-hop artist Candy Bowers plays the crossover role of ring mistress.

Times have changed, with increasing professionalism meaning increasing specialisation. When Frank joined the legendary The Australian Performing Group at Melbourne’s Pram Factory, it was a case of all hands on deck. Luckily, with an electrician father and a dressmaker mother, she brought useful skills and got to help operate lighting and sound, gradually moving into costume design.

“It was a great training ground for skills, although I was never formally trained,” she says.

Frank quickly made herself the Australian expert on circus-costuming and keeps up-to-date, recently travelling the world and confirming that Circus Oz is still “at the forefront of the new circus form”.

New it may be, but some things never change in circus and audiences can expect to see a mix of stunt-jumping acrobatics, juggling, hoop diving, flying trapeze, impersonations and knockabout.

“If acrobats have to climb down a Chinese pole, you need strength in the costumes, but for trapeze artists, you need something light, tight and flexible… still, I always tried to make the costumes as beautiful as possible.”

This time there’s been an additional demand on her visual sensitivity. The production draws on the tradition of TV shows like Graham Kennedy’s “In Melbourne Tonight”, where high-selling commercial product-placement reigned supreme.

“Not much has changed in TV ads,” Frank says and, in the new show, “But Wait There’s More”, Circus Oz talks about what’s happening now with consumerism, drawing on the lurid colours and grotesque make-up used to register in black and white in early TV.

This time round there’s a new Chinese pole act with an acrobatic dance surrounding it, meaning that the fabrics must be tough for the pole work yet light and graceful for the dance. The conventional steel poles are now covered with Neoprene sheets, so sticky that sometimes the costumes get left behind!

“It may sound like a small thing, but it has occupied a huge number of hours to get the right combination of fabric tightness and elegance,” she says.

“I didn’t see that coming,” Frank sighs, “but hey, that’s circus, really.”

Circus Oz, “But Wait There’s More”, Canberra Theatre, September 23-26. Bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.