"Everyday You Have To Think: How Could I Be More Stupid Tomorrow?"

Today we did an exercise in which we had to come out and speak with a funny voice (a speaking problem) in order to make people laugh. We should see that you're happy to be top-level funny. Like Philippe said yesterday, the guy that wears a joke mask and brings some fake poo to a party thinks he is funny, and so he is funny, but it's not the poo that is funny. It's the idiot that thinks the poo is funny. 

Wearing the joke masks like yesterday, we went up one by one. Somebody asked whether we should go in groups to which Philippe replied: "We're not so many...we can take the time to flop." 

~

"You need to bring a lot of stupid things...if you don't bring a lot of stupid things it's not a clown."

"Everyday you have to think: How could I be more stupid tomorrow?"

"You have to discover your strong point - where we love you and where we laugh."

"If you have a flop you think there are too many people from Belgium in the audience. It's not you, it's the audience."



~

When I got up I tried several different silly voices, staying with a barely comprehensible kind of Australian voice in the end. Philippe eventually killed me saying I was too much with a character. Stay with the audience. Play with the audience.

"You speak like this to make us laugh. Not to be the character."

"You're not the character. You're a guy who pretends. You're just a guy that got the contract to try to make the audience laugh."

He then got me to pick a girl from the audience (I picked Hannah from London) and whenever Philippe beat his drum I had to wink at Hannah suggesting "Kama Sutra in a caravan in the woods." The audience liked me more in this way.

"You have to look at us. To play with us."

You can/should always do this. Pick someone in the audience to wink at. Go and shake their hand. It's not unusual for a clown to fall in love with a girl in the audience, go and sit next to her, and wait for the show to start.

Text - Look - Text - Look...

~

Tessa (Australia) was great when Philippe made her cover her teeth with her lips and told her if anyone saw her teeth she would have to buy them a beer after class. She felt ridiculous, and her voice suddenly sounded very silly, and she couldn't laugh or else she'd be buying the whole class a beer! Philippe got her to speak in a loud Greek-Australian accent, and to make the sound of a truck engine whenever he beat his drum. Brilliant if she believes she is the new Shakespeare of Australia. She was very loveable like this. Full of joy.

~

A few people came on stage and felt the flop and then just begged Philippe to bang his drum and end their pain. "Normally a clown doesn't want to leave the stage. He wants to stay and he's going to do so many things to try to stay."

"When you are in a corridor you have to change. To try to stay on stage."

"You have to propose something" – make an offer.

~

When Boris (big French circus performer) got up, Philippe asked him if he speaks Arab, which Boris answered no. But Philippe said "Tout les Clouns parle n'importe quoi." All clowns speak whatever. Arab. Russian. You speak Chinese? No problem! It's like a contract.

~

At the end of class Philippe emphasised the importance of looking very well to the audience. You wink to be close to them. And you never know, the King of Sweden might be there (he's always in disguise), and he might give you a Nobel prize...