Every week between Easter and November, around two hundred funfairs open in cities and towns across every part of the United Kingdom, run by some 4,500 travelling showmen and their families—a group described as the largest extended village in the country. Most of us never encounter showmen directly. They are often wrongly confused with other travellers and frequently seen as outsiders, yet they have their own strong cultural identity. Their modern equipment may employ the most up-to-date electronic and mechanical technology, but the Showmen’s community is deeply rooted in historical tradition and strong family values.

John Comino-James photographed this world for Fairground Attraction, published by Dewi Lewis in 2003. The book runs 168 pages and contains 190 duotone photographs, measuring 285mm by 240mm. Its approach is close to the intimacy of a family album. Through formal portraits and candid observation, we meet showmen not only at work—as they build up and open a fair in the streets of an English market town—but also away from the brash and public arena of the funfair, in the private spaces of their living trailers and winter quarters, and during family celebrations of christening and marriage.

Comino-James did not work at a distance. The book includes texts written from his conversations with the showmen, alongside a contextualising essay by the photographer. That combination offers a unique insight into the community and way of life of the Travelling Showmen, making the book less a survey of a curious trade than a sustained act of attention to a working community.

For a collection centred on British documentary photography, the book earns its place on specific grounds. It records an occupational culture that is widely seen but rarely understood, and it does so with the intimacy of a family album while retaining the discipline of formal portraiture. Its subject, its method, and its collaboration with the people photographed give it a documentary value that does not depend on its rarity.