Clowns (BBC2 Tonight)
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:28 pm
On BBC2, 9.00pm tonight, looks pretty interesting.
From the BBC website:
'From animal petting to sea shanties to balloon buffoonery, being a children's entertainer seems an almost thankless task. Kids screaming, crying, badgering and demanding constantly whilst performers attempt to maintain their professional cool and pull yet another hankie from their sleeve or fall face down again knowing it's guaranteed to make a four-year-old laugh.
Daisy Asquith wondered who these people are. Was it their life long ambition? And how do they know what the children want? Then those creeping doubts and stereotypical fears stated to rear their ugly heads: don't you have to be a bit weird to do this sort of thing? Are they all failed adult entertainers? And do they all still live with their mothers?
Back home Daisy started to investigate further and soon found all her preconceptions challenged in a world of pirates and pumpkins, comedy handshakes and rabbits in hats. This is a film about what she found. Some strong language'
Trailer here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=HzsGX4hur ... h_response
And a review:
This must be one of the most quotable programmes since Little Britain. But Clowns isn’t a comedy. It’s a documentary – about, as you may have deduced, clowns. Not a history of clowns, but a fly-on-the-wall look at three present-day performers. The clowns, at least to viewers over the age of five, may not seem terribly entertaining when they’re doing their acts, but they’re great interviewees. “I’m Tommy Tickle,” says Tommy Tickle, in gruff cockney. “I took over this job from a guy called Timmy Tickle. He moved to Essex to become Silly Billy Blue Hat.” Potty the Pirate invites us to watch him strut his stuff at a children’s party (“They were a bit quiet,” concedes a disappointed Potty afterwards. “But then, it is a hospital”). Clowns doesn’t hold its subjects up to ridicule, though – it’s just a funny, sweet, sometimes sad portrait of eccentricity.
From the BBC website:
'From animal petting to sea shanties to balloon buffoonery, being a children's entertainer seems an almost thankless task. Kids screaming, crying, badgering and demanding constantly whilst performers attempt to maintain their professional cool and pull yet another hankie from their sleeve or fall face down again knowing it's guaranteed to make a four-year-old laugh.
Daisy Asquith wondered who these people are. Was it their life long ambition? And how do they know what the children want? Then those creeping doubts and stereotypical fears stated to rear their ugly heads: don't you have to be a bit weird to do this sort of thing? Are they all failed adult entertainers? And do they all still live with their mothers?
Back home Daisy started to investigate further and soon found all her preconceptions challenged in a world of pirates and pumpkins, comedy handshakes and rabbits in hats. This is a film about what she found. Some strong language'
Trailer here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=HzsGX4hur ... h_response
And a review:
This must be one of the most quotable programmes since Little Britain. But Clowns isn’t a comedy. It’s a documentary – about, as you may have deduced, clowns. Not a history of clowns, but a fly-on-the-wall look at three present-day performers. The clowns, at least to viewers over the age of five, may not seem terribly entertaining when they’re doing their acts, but they’re great interviewees. “I’m Tommy Tickle,” says Tommy Tickle, in gruff cockney. “I took over this job from a guy called Timmy Tickle. He moved to Essex to become Silly Billy Blue Hat.” Potty the Pirate invites us to watch him strut his stuff at a children’s party (“They were a bit quiet,” concedes a disappointed Potty afterwards. “But then, it is a hospital”). Clowns doesn’t hold its subjects up to ridicule, though – it’s just a funny, sweet, sometimes sad portrait of eccentricity.
