Rachel Ponsonby, Musical Clown

Rachel Ponsonby developed this number when she worked for Cirque Plume in France as a musician. She says a lot of the work that she got is because she’s a musician and plays a variety of instruments: cello, saxophone, flute, … , and they asked her if she could play trombone, which she said yes, which wasn’t exactly true. But she hoped it wouldn’t be so difficult what they were going to ask for and learned to play trombone quickly.

Before that she used to play in England in The Happy End big band, in Mummerandada street theatre company and as ‘the musician’ in Angela de Castro’s clown show The Gift. After Cirque Plume she continued making her own shows and started working with the Belgium Circus Ronaldo and still does the Christmas show in December with them.

When she was working for Cirque Plume, she created her own role, la femme orchestre. They needed an extra number and she happily filled the gap as she had the idea already in her mind of making a one man band, but differently. Traditionally it would be with a big drum on the back and a harmonica and it would be performed by a man. She uses strange instruments and wooden platform shoes that make sounds and, well, she’s not a man. But ‘that just happens...’ she said laughingly. ‘Before, I didn’t think women clowning existed. I think it’s getting more normal now. It was basically the idea that women weren’t funny anyway. At the time, nearly 20 years ago, I thought it was important that there were women's clown festivals like in Andorra. Now I hope there are more women performing in just general clown festivals. My character is very strict and at the same time eccentric. It’s inspired by my aunt Laura actually, who was very funny. She also looked quite strict. A friend of hers also inspired me for my Carmen act; she was in a girls’ bordingschool as a music mistress and conductor.

She had this quite teethy look with a small mouth that I also have and exaggerate. She had a sort of look about her, this sort of strictness. She died now, but she was a great inspiration to me. When my mother had seen me first performing this character, for her it was just totally awful, she couldn’t bare it seeing me do this character, it was too close to the bone. There’s a classical side to this certain style of women. But when my mother realized that the audience were enjoying it, she sort of thought that maybe it’s okay. When I come on stage, dressed in all this strange stuff the audience is already like o, what’s happening now? Because the character is quite strict you wouldn’t expect her to do unusual things but then she does do unusual things. And it’s like the audience is my friends, which is a good feeling. I’m wearing quite normal clothes, white shirt and grey skirt and then I lift up the skirt, it’s only showing knees but because she’s so strict looking it’s already a lot. That’s what’s fun, to play with what’s unexpected from the character. And it’s also a feeling like o this is the best thing, remind yourself that it’s the first time and you’re excited about showing or telling this thing, like really being in the thing, being totally involved in it.’

‘I have quite some shows, like Tic Tac Tock and Pic-Nic Rendez-Vous, that are not so much clownshows but are more about the music. And then I have some musical clown numbers, the femme orchestra, Carmen where I’m conducting and giving instruments to people sitting in the audience. And another one that I played in my show Mon Opera where I mime to play the piano and get more and more drunk so the emotion changes every sixteen bars.

In a clown number there’s never music just because it’s pretty, there’s always something behind that bit of music, it’s always going somewhere or there’s something else happening. And the music can go completely wrong, as the important thing is the jeu. Now I am doing this street show Cirko Flora where I want the music to be only there when it’s needed, the main thing is that it’s a clown show. I think now my mother has started to appreciate it, but for many years she said: Rachel, why? You’re a good musician, you’re pretty, why can’t you just do music, why do you have to do that, make a fool of yourself? I think a lot of people have difficulty with clowning because they see it as making a fool of yourself. What I like about clowning is that people say: oh la la, this person has got it really bad, even worse than me. Then that’s nice, funny to watch, because when you feel 'o dear, this person is even worse than I am', then you sort of feel quite good. And that’s what I like.’