Clowns

We had many discussions with other performers at the Milano Clown Festival about clowns.

What is a clown?

When you mention the word clown most people immediately think of children's entertainers and circus clowns with red noses, fright wigs, small cars and flowers that squirt water. And from chatting to my esteemed colleagues in Milan the story is the same in Austria, Italy, France, Germany, Australia...

Yes that is one version of a clown, but why is a clown perceived as only for children? As far as I can see the red nose is derived from a drunk's crimson hooter, and people with a bit of alcohol inside them are unpredictable, without a censor and certainly not suitable for our society's notion of children's entertainment, although I'm sure if you asked the children they would cry "More!".

It's interesting how we decide what children should and shouldn't like these days. Makes for a very antiseptic childhood. For example, we had one woman rather shocked at the perceived adult content of our Ugly Tarts show at the festival. Needless to say she didn't stop long enough to actually watch what we were doing, a common mistake on the part of people with 'opinions', but as a result her children missed out on the funny ladies in black coats. Children don't see sexual content in a performance unless the adult accompanying them makes an issue of it.

As far as I can tell all comedians are clowns, from Tony Hancock to Russell Brand to Jim Davidson to Little Britain to Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot.

I suppose it all comes down to which performers define themselves as a clown, and it does tend to be those who employ the red nose. Other comedians possibly refrain from using the term for fear of creating false expectation in their audience. Vicious circle.

And CCC doesn't define its characters as clowns for the very reason that the word clown is so loaded and public expectation being what it is means we would only have a lot of angry, disappointed parents as our audience, but this also means we are just as guilty of narrowing the definition of a clown.

But our characters ARE clowns. All of them. The Ugly Tarts are deeply unattractive but crucially don’t realise it, so they are never going to succeed in their chosen profession. And it's not even a great career choice! In order to warn the public, Mary Whitehouse felt a moral obligation to seek out, voyeuristically, the material most offensive to her, and then in censoring it made it more attractive and more popular then it would ever have been on its own. (Note to those prone to moral outrage: if you don't like something, ignore it!)

All our characters are flawed and that's what makes them funny. Which is all of us, no?

The bottom line for me is that clowning is the most difficult art form. So whomever you are that calls yourself clown, or if you are someone who tries to make people laugh, or if you are just someone trying to make their way as best they can in this absurd world, I take my hat off to you. Life is short, and we are a long time dead.