Tomato’s Master Class! A very special invitation to school children their parents and profession circus clowns to inspire ideas via this Guest Book to create more happiness for our children!

There is some confusion about the name ‘clown’ so I do feel most strongly that corrections should be made. There are very many ‘children’s entertainers’ and the vast majority are fine artistes with excellent acts who usually perform ‘house party’s’ for the very young perhaps. Some use clown type make ups.
I think, as perhaps, most people think that a clown means the circus, it means something much bigger with bigger props. It means slapstick and knock-a-bout fun. Circus clowning is very special.

I have been a circus clown for over 40 years and I have seen the very best and I have had the great fortune to actually appear with (or have assisted) the very best over that time. I do not think circus clowning today is quite as good as in the past. Certainly the numbers of clowns are much smaller and some are not very funny!
There are some very nasty websites attacking the name ‘clown’ and comic make-up. Why this is I do not know. To be perfectly honest, I do not quite know the full meaning of clown make up (!) although I use a happy face.

I simply think it makes a person look more ridiculous and a Red Nose (I suggest) is the result of that person having fallen on the floor countless times. Apart from that it is just tradition like ridiculous clothes.

What is a clown?

As I have suggested elsewhere, I say he (or she!) is just a very big child like Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy. The basis of clown comedy is slapstick and what appears to be hurtful but it is not. It suggests comic hurt and not real hurt (real hurt is nasty).

Just like pantomime with the demon king or the villain, they are persons just to boo and children know it is just pretence. That is the point of clowning it is all pretending!
I say that clowning is for children up to the age of ten years that can be appreciated by all ages. It suggests that adults should be children again if only for a short time. I will be controversial and say that clowning should be precisely what the children want it to be! They should write the gags and the scripts rather than gags and scripts being inflicted upon them by grown ups. You tell the clown what you think! He is working for you.

I have placed some writings and comments upon Wikipedia and also Wiki Answers on the subject of circus clowns (see Tom Sandow) and these are good sites but, alas, some writers have placed the most obscure logics and ‘hidden meanings’ that even I do not understand! It is nonsense, let us move on and let us simply make our children happy.

I say that our children are suffering the vilest inputs from TV and Videos and films that would not be allowed when I was a child. The BBC tells us that 40 per cent of our children are unhappy I am surprised it is not 100 per cent! I find our child audiences inspire the same wonderful simplistic truthful logic that always was so it can only be the adults who make them miserable.

I say that this wonderful world belongs to our children and not to the adults and good clean slapstick comedy belongs to them too.
In 2007 I wrote an appealing letter to Her Majesty the Queen suggesting a very special ‘Party Holiday’ each year just for our children and her gracious reply was as follows; “Her Majesty was interested to learn of the forty year history of The Sandow Clowns Slapstick Theatre Company, and sends you her best wishes for the future of the Company”
I was also informed that only the Prime Minister could sanction such a day and it appears that only religious events can inspire a Special Holiday.

So,
I invite all children to contribute to this Guest Book. I do not wish to see your e-mail or even your real name for I value your privacy absolutely but ‘Michael or Sally from Bolton’ would be nice. You could also use a comic clown user name instead like ‘Carrot Top’ and come back again and again.
I also invite your parents to be involved and also real circus clowns! Yes, join in this discussion – you may use your real name and experiences.
Let us see if we can not inspire that special holiday!
Let us share the best ideas that can make all our children happy – every day.
Remember children – you are the most important person!
Should you be at all interested in my circus life I do have running my Life Diary on the American Circus Historical Society – History – Tom Sandow