Tweedy is serious about clowning

There are different types of clowns: kids’ entertainer clowns, circus clowns, adult cabaret clowns, and even clowns who do their whole act naked, or so we’ve heard.

“If you’re a clown and you see a good clown, you admire the craft or art,” Tweedy, who falls in the camp of circus clowns, explains, “I do find everyone’s kind of very open and appreciates each other.”

Much of that respect is thanks to their teachers and the clowns that came before them. Tweedy references Philippe Gaulier, whose student roster includes Emma Thompson, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Kathryn Hunter, Mathew Baynton, and countless others. When we video call, it happens to be the day of the late professor’s funeral, and Tweedy takes a moment after he shares the realisation.

A sense of loss shadows our chat, which opened with Tweedy talking about the Clowns Service, taking place annually since 1946 at Trinity Saints Church. The tradition is in honour of Joseph Grimaldi, who is considered one of the first clowns – at least, the first with an emphasis on the painted white face and the physical comedy of harlequinade. “All the clowns go in costume and makeup, and it’s kind of a regular church service-ish, but it’s full of clowns,” Tweedy begins to explain. Clowns of every age and nationality come together on the second week of February (when people are feeling particularly low), and they pay their respects in prayers and celebration.

“In 2006, Bill Irwin walked into the room and my jaw hit the floor. Lots of people didn’t know who he was because he’s from America. He was doing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the West End, and he didn’t know anyone here, so we got chatting. We used to hang out and hire a hall, and he would show me his clown moves, and it was so special because he was somebody I looked up to.”

Anybody who has found themselves around the Thames Valley between spring and autumn may have been drawn to the magnificent big top of Gifford’s Circus, where Tweedy has been the resident clown for some 20 years. There, they sell dolls (complete with the red tuft mohawk in place of a traditional red nose) and his blue trousers, and children and adults alike enthusiastically raise their hands to join him in the show.

“What I love about clowning is that it’s timeless. I could be doing what I’m doing now, 100 years ago. It feels right to keep it going for kids, and because I’m quite old now, people turn up who have seen me when they were a kid, and now they’re bringing their kids. That’s nice to see.”

In 2024, Tweedy skipped a season of Gifford’s to premiere his first show, Tweedy’s Massive Circus, in Edinburgh. It went so well that he’s touring his second, The Big Number Two (you’re right to assume what he’s getting at with the title), later this spring. “Again, it’s called Massive Circus, but it’s really tiny. That was deliberate because it’s so much more fun as a clown to be in an intimate environment.”

He has opted for a non-blackout tent, meaning that he’ll be able to see the faces of the audience. “I do like to get people up, and it’s not about trying to humiliate them or make them feel silly or even make them funny. It just makes the act so much more real, because they don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know how they’re going to react… As a clown, if something goes wrong, you have to lean into that,” Tweedy says.

“So yeah, I do like playing with audience members.” His face drops in panic as he realises, “That sounds a bit wrong!”

The show features a cast of three (collaborators Sam Goodburn and Charlie Bicknell) and introduces the character of Lady Crinklebottom: “She’s this posh lady, but unbeknownst to me, she’s booked the show, but she hasn’t booked me. She wants to be the star of the show, and I’ve forgotten to book the acts. So we have to try to put the acts on and convince her that this show is good enough.

“It’s just really silly! What I like about it is that I have the creative freedom just to make it my world and just be as ridiculous as I like.”

Ridiculous could well be Tweedy’s middle name – nobody knows what it is actually – but we do now know how he created his famous ladder act. For those unfamiliar, he defies gravity and twists brains in his physical comedy act that turns a standard ladder into a climbing frame. I urge you all to look it up on his YouTube channel.

“It’s one of my oldest numbers, and it came about by accident, 20 years ago now. Giffords used to be in a much smaller tent, and at the end of the show, they used to fire these streamer cannons, and they’d always get caught up in the pole. Because we had a quick turnaround of a 5pm show and a 7:30pm show, there was no time to get them down. So I said, ‘Well, I’ll do it, whilst the audience is coming in,’ and it just developed from there.

“I just used to play with this ladder as the audience were coming in and get these streamers down. I didn’t really think about it until someone tried to book my ladder act. I asked, ‘What, ladder? I don’t have a ladder act.’ And they explained ‘What you did before the show started’!”

It’s the use of the word ‘play’ in this situation that makes this Tweedy fan (I’m marrying into a family of devout Tweedy supporters) smile. It’s as though a ladder is a toy, much like a train set or cuddly toy. “Well, I kind of quite like that adrenaline of danger as well,” he says, almost shyly.

For this clown, it isn’t a case of getting into character or anything like that. “Basically, it’s me excited. Which is handy because when I go into the circus ring or on the stage, I get excited. We all have different versions of ourselves and that is who Tweedy is.”

Throughout our call, he’s fiddling with a banana, which feels suitably clownish given my expectations. I ask how he maintains the physicality to have so much energy and, crucially, to carry out these stunts safely. He’s shy when I point this out, admitting “At the moment, this is the longest I’ve gone for a long time of not doing shows,” he demonstrates a slight unease, like he’s desperate for that to no longer be true, “I like running and generally I’ve got a lot of energy and have to burn it off somehow.”

It’s why the next day he’s heading up to Blackpool for a show – travelling north away from Gloucestershire, where he’s something of a local legend. If you want to see Tweedy in his full glory, and I insist you do, you’ll make your way to his small big top for his second show.