What's The Bottom Line with Clowning with Emily Denton Davies and Edward Jamie Richards

That's The Bottom Line 

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Clowning with Emily Denton Davies and Edward Richards

What is clowning?

Emily: This question is up to interpretation. My personal opinion of what clowning is bringing people back to their childhood. A clown can be enjoyed by both adults and children and the humour translates to both young and old. Clowning in my opinion also makes a political statement, when i produced and performed "T" my character was willing to do anything for a warm drink. This could have easily been modernized, so that I was playing a young woman who was is willing to do ANYTHING for money. But clowning doesn't fit the same characteristics as In-Yer-Face theatre, clowning is simple and subtle but when you step away from the laughter the clowns story is a sad, depressing one. I guess anything in today's society could be picked apart and we'd somehow find something depressing about it. I guess with any clowns story you could unpick it to see what the creator was trying to say. An example of this is Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", a play about two men waiting for someone to turn up but never does. Don't get me wrong, the play is funny, very funny but the bottom line is, its a play about waiting for this man or woman or animal? who you've never seen before, to turn up and somehow make your life better or worse. We could say it the play is about finding God, but we can't read Beckett's dead mind can we? I think the point Beckett was trying to make was that we can search for something all our lives, be it love, money, lust but we don't know what it looks like or what form it will be in, we could wait forever. That's what clowning is, layering humour to mask the pain.

Eddie: If I would want to put it in the simplest explanation. Clowning to me is something that is human and not alienated and that we either find comfort, happiness or sadness and softness when watching a piece of art form which where we are on a different place or a different time, and we feel a different emotions depending on the clown we are seeing or the same emotion.

What's your perfect clown?

Emily: Is there one? I've played three different types of clown, feminist, tragic and buffoon and none of them are perfect. It depends what I'm trying to tell the audience. Feminist clown didn't really have a motive, buffoon was used because I was pissed off at the way women are at university and tragic clown was created because I wanted to show the audience that not only men suffered because of WW1. Depending on my mood I create them because I have something to say, none of them are perfect, no clown ever is.

Eddie: I would have to say a perfect clown doesn't exist. I would even argue perfection in rehearsing isn't perfection of being a clown. My clown isn't at all your typical clown, it's a stand up comedian. And, there's flaws there with that. But, I think the closest to perfection of a clown is if the clown is doing the job that it entails to get the audiences reactions. For example, Robin Williams if you ever watch Inside The Actors studio with him in it, you see he is a clown on and off stage. I think the perfect clown or if it ever gets close to one is somebody that can easily produce the material without the hardship behind it.

Why do you think clowning is quite popular? 

Emily: Is it? I wouldn't say clowning is very popular. I don't know how to answer that really. The only clowning show I know of is Slava Snow Show or Cirque Du Solei there isn't that many out there now. I don't think people would go to watch a "clown show" from my opinion people think that they've outgrown watching a clown and it wouldn't appeal to them anymore. People are too serious nowadays!

Eddie: I would agree with Emily that it isn't as popular I think to blame there is the horror industry. Simply because, people have a fear of clowns from Stephen King's IT and there's tons of horror films that use the clown as a serial killer! Not very funny unless it's a bad film. But, clowning can be a serious or funny situation I think the show I liked was "The Greatest Show on Earth" which is more a circus show, elephants doing Gangman Style...yes they did that! But, at the end of the day I think a pure clowning show with clowns in is for the children if it's a circus and then we can consider the different types of clowning and I can see them becoming more popular with the adults but not X Factor popularity more like Blue's Clues popularity.

Your favourite clown? 

Emily: A buffoon is my favourite clown, its not your obvious face painted juggling clown, no this one is very in-year-face. I'd like to think of a buffoon as someone that tries to coax the truth out of its audience, someone who confronts them head on and doesn't give a fuck what they say. Just look at Red Bastard.

Eddie: My favourite clowns, I don't have a type it's more the stand up comedian clowning I prefer. I love Whoopi Goldberg's stand up comedy because it's more I see into her and I love Robin Williams as well. But, a more that shocked me the most was Gabriel Iglesias. If you haven't seen any of these stand up comedians I would highly watch them.

What would you say to anyone that wants to be a clown? 

Emily: Research why a clown was created, what audience it spoke to at that time, that will help you to realize what kind of clown you need to be for your audience. What do you need to tell people?

Eddie: I would highly recommend looking into the different styles of clowning and see which one would suit you most, then researching what has been done and experimenting. I think clowning is a lot of experimenting and thinking and it's great to have feedback from people as well. Plus, I used the image above because I feel this was the first step into my clown, mine is a very simple stand up comedian with looking into different religions and either the flaws or weird parts in that religions.....Like Pastafarian, Jedi etc. I did a good 4 weeks of research. Research, produce, experiment, punch lines.....action.

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