The Bill-Toppers

A touring family of trick cyclists travels through India, Africa, Australia and beyond as a manager father grooms his young daughter Lily into a performing star. The narrative follows their cramped, constant life on ships, trains and under tents, the child's learning of bicycle and song-and-dance turns, her rise to solo appearances, the father's relentless ambition for metropolitan success, and the mother's private misgivings about the stage. Episodes of exotic locales and the practicalities of small-scale touring frame tensions between parental pride, commercial spectacle, and the costs of a childhood lived for performance.