"We Have To Figure Out What Works And What Doesn't Work With You"

Today we had movement with Spanish Susanna and then Clown with Thomas.

The aim of today: "Trying to be as ridiculous as possible."

The exercise: Two actors go up on stage and take turns to do something to make the audience laugh. If we laugh, the actor steps forwards. If we don't laugh, the actor step backwards.

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"Explore different things...Take the time to explore and risk different things." 

"Do something, then see if we like it. Don't stay with it." i.e. Don't keep doing the thing forever. Do it, then drop it. Make it clear it's just something stupid you did to make us laugh.

"If a laugh comes it means something might work. If not, it doesn't."

"We have to figure out what works and what doesn't work with you."

"You have to check if we like it or not...try not to be too logical."

"If you get a laugh you have to think why."

"The clown is very naïve...don't be too intelligent...he says yes to everything but he doesn't know anything." If you are too intelligent it goes towards Stand-Up.

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When you're up it can be hard to think of new things to do - you've got to just keep following impulses and trying new stuff. Thomas gave lots of good suggestions/challenges to help out:

Play with your eyes, lips, teeth, neck...

Sing through you nose... 

Sing the Greek National Anthem...

Speak Czech, Russian, French...

Be fire... Be an asparagus...

Show us your mathematics skills... karaoke skills...

Show us your best dance move... your best magic trick...

Show us your thinking face... your gangster face.

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When I got up I was quite nervous but quickly started having fun. I got quite a few laughs from different things I did. But there were plenty of flops too! But if you don't care about whether what you do is bad or not it's much more freeing (hold on to this Guy). It helps to be extremely happy with everything you do! Ready to play. And it's always good to do totally stupid silly things.

I need to be aware not to be too intelligent as my clown as there were one or two moments today where I was very quick and got a good laugh, but it wasn't from the naïvety of the clown - it was my comic actor wit. So I have to avoid this trap.

I found rhythm was important in making the audience laugh. It's good to find a strange rhythm for the clown. Something surprising.

Thomas gave me the advice to "try many different things with my voice" because I'm strong there. And whilst on stage he said "you're better when you're small". That makes sense because when I'm small I'm more subtle and more light. I think cuteness comes from being small too, and that seems to me to be a big thing for clowns. They're adorable.