Tag: England
Comedians and clowns have been parodying Shakespeare for centuries now, and “reduced Shakespeare” companies have become somewhat of a comedy franchise since the 80s. Here’s a nice physical Rowan Atkinson piece, a fake lecture on Shakespearean acting from 1991. Despite the title, his tights are not pink and there aren’t all that many props — but a great title nonetheless. Atkinson is best known for his Mr. Bean character, but his range is much broader. The following piece, which co-stars Angus Deayton, is just one example.
I blazed through London for three jet-lagged days on my way to Paris, and managed to catch part of a circus festival (ongoing through May 16th) at the Roundhouse Theatre in fashionable Camden Town.
Back in 1985 through some contact in Germany I vaguely remember as “clown David” (hello, wherever you are!), I got hold of what I’m pretty sure was the first tape of Grock’s full-length show to make its way to the United States. We premiered it on what today would be considered a small television set for an appreciative audience (that included Bill Irwin) at our 2nd NY International Clown-Theatre Festival. Also on that tape was this unidentified clip starring Charlie Cairoli (1910—1980) doing some musical clowning and busting out with some killer dance steps. I guess it’s rarer than I realized, because not only don’t I see it anywhere on the web, I don’t see any of his work.
Today I introduce yet another new feature to this blog, a complete book in the form of a pdf file suitable for reading online, downloading, or printing. Because of legal issues, most if not all books presented here will be from the pre-copyright era, roughly a century or more ago, and therefore of a historical nature.
The Christmas pantomime is what remains of the old harlequinade, the cauldron for physical comedy in 19th-century England.
In a first for this blog, I am posting from 37,000 feet above earth, aboard a Delta Atlanta–NYC flight with free wi-fi (trial offer). I’m sure this will soon be standard, even for us bozos in coach, but right now I’m thinking it’s pretty cool.
I had the pleasure to meet British clown performer and teacher Jon Davison this summer in London and to speak with him about his research into the workings of the performing clown. For the past couple of years he has been undertaking an International Clown Research Project, in residency at London University and at the Escola de Clown de Barcelona. He is in the process of compiling a sort of Encyclopaedia of Clown. I say sort of encyclopaedia, because part of what he’s doing is analytic writing and part of it is “a performance designed to test, compare and demonstrate the wide variety of forms and structures in clown performance.”
I guess it’s a generational thing, but when I mention parkour to anyone over 40, I usually get a blank stare, which if nothing else makes me feel young and in the know. If you too are going “huh?” just think of those videos you’ve probably seen of ridiculously agile teenage daredevils — Spidermen without the web — jumping on, over and off walls, railings and other structures that get in their way. They are called traceurs presumably because they trace a path through space while leaving only a faint imprint.
Chapter 5 from my book, Clowns: A Panoramic History
One more background piece. This chapter from my 1976 history of clowns dealt in detail with the development of physical comedy in the nineteenth century and, ultimately, its influence on American silent film comedy. Good stuff!
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin