A softly subversive world where innocence never quite holds.Rating
Excellent!
Clowns are usually brash creatures. They revel in noise, disruption and the grotesque. Usually.
Lucy Ellis’s Moonkid brings a gentler kind of cartoon to the London Clown Festival. Her parade of characters possesses an unusual serenity: a wandering moon, a nun absorbed in prayer, a gliding would-be poet and a wilderness safety guide sweeping the darkness with his torch. This stillness forms the backdrop against which the clowning takes place.
The sweet and seemingly pure-hearted Moonkid, who attracts as many ‘awhhs’ as laughs, begins a friendly game of noughts and crosses before gradually becoming petty and sarcastic when they lose. None of Ellis’s characters, however saintly they initially appear, are entirely above a middle finger. The praying nun begins gossiping with God; her mischief eventually descends into violent slapstick. The comedy comes from small corruptions of innocence and mischief in church rather than explosions of chaos.
Some segments choose to end on moments of contemplation rather than laughter. When the wilderness guide ends a section with a heartfelt reflection on the endlessness of the horizon, it catches the audience off guard at first, but ultimately stands out amid the cheekiness and adds to the show’s enchanting feel.
The show even feels rooted in older traditions of clowning. Moonkid’s fixed mask looks as though it might have been lifted from the margin of a medieval manuscript, while the recurring religious imagery lends the piece the atmosphere of a medieval Feast of Fools.
This gentleness shapes the structure as much as the characters. Where many clown shows begin with a burst of energy before settling into reflection, Moonkid proceeds in reverse. The opening scenes, featuring Moonkid and the nun, unfold entirely through mime. When the hunter finally emerges from the darkness and speaks, it feels transgressive, as though he has broken a silence that had become the show’s natural state.
The poet is like a mad spider, slinky and villainous; her weapon is amateur poetry. Dressed in black, she resembles a cartoon shadow with large, attention-seeking eyes, improvising from audience suggestions: a corner, failure, a potato. She has a full grasp of the character’s internal logic, and her responses, which generate jokes physically and verbally, feel effortless. It’s that comic effect where someone of apparent low status is performed with the authority of a high-status figure. This is reminiscent of the inversion of order common at medieval religious festivals, and is probably the character with the most laugh-out-loud irreverence.
Ellis’s movement is exceptional. Physical routines are executed flawlessly; meticulous gestures and jumps are a trademark of her style. She has a sharp precision that makes it seem as though an invisible force is working against her. Her hands and feet extend into delicate points, performing ecclesiastical gestures with exacting intricacy.
Her achievement is in making restraint feel alive and playful rather than static. Moonkid creates a softly subversive world where innocence never quite holds. Stillness is constantly and delicately unsettled, with humour emerging from small breaches of calm — petty jealousy, playful blasphemy, and flashes of mischief in otherwise serene figures. Even its quieter moments feed into this atmosphere, creating a show that feels less like a series of sketches and more like an enchanting ritual.
Created by Lucy Ellis
This run is now completed. The London Clown Festival continues until Saturday 13 July.
