Hello dear reader! Who are you and where do you dwell from?

For those fresh eyes I am Charlie, a clown, facilitator, performer, host and other titles. I work a lot with people; I work in hospitals with children as part of their ongoing care as a giggle doctor, I’ve spent many years performing on the streets of the UK in various costumes and acts to create connection and celebration, and sometimes I make it inside a theatre or cabaret (I’m tentatively moving back towards this kind of work).

Last year I was fortunate to get a Develop Your Creative Practice grant from the Arts Council to explore Clowning as Therapeutic Practice. What does this mean? Well in pitching my worthyness to the great grant makers I told them that I was reaching a plateau in my work - giggling in hospitals and in the streets for 7+ years - and seeking to make facilitate more work and move into other areas. Mainly I was wanting to deepen my understanding of the work I have been doing working with children in hospitals: how it effects me, is it emotionally sustainable for me to do the work, what lessons can I bring from that work to other people, what skills do I actually have or am I an overblown children’s entertainer? (good news - I’m not!). I needed some time, some learning, some good old fashioned experimentation.

So I wanted some time to play, some time to reflect, and some time to learn some therapeutic skills.

It’s been an interesting journey, I’m now nearing the end quarter of my DYCP (after having really strung out the budget). I’ve found it VERY DIFFICULT to hold the entire plan in my head, and indeed each step has revealed the next step I needed to take (involving much planning and replanning). I’m learning to lean into this more, trusting your own wisdom as it arrives (but keeping your planner part happy with some long term goals - so long as you can wriggle out of them if you really need to).

Anyway - to Holly Stoppit. Holly is a FAB person, and very impressive to boot. A clown, trained dramatherapist, creative therapies supervisor, IFS practitioner, director, facilitator, it’s a long of list of great things. I’ve done a lot of work with Holly during this DYCP, and through this have been getting to spend more time learning Fooling, or as I titled it in our last session, The Gentle Art of Being Weird.

Fooling is basically getting to know all of the voices in your head (you can also call these parts, or masks, or archetypes). As an ADHD type I’ve found Fooling to be GREAT. When I did my first 20 minute solo improvisation on Holly’s 5-day Fools in Bristol in winter 2024, alongside a small and lovely group of 8 other, I found such relief in getting to embody and voice all the different aspects of me, and ended the performance lying on the floor, knackered, having released all the things I was holding in. To hear the group warmly tell me how busy and fascinating my brain is was also SUPER USEFUL to hear, as it has been one in many confirmations that my brain works in a different manner to some (I’d say we all have different brains - hurray!).

So in March Holly and I spent 2 whole days in a process called ‘Assemble Your Inner Cast’. Backed up by Holly’s knowledge of Internal Family Systems and Fooling, this 2-day process was to get to know better the some of the many parts of my internal psyche, and then to reconstitute this map of me.

We had a lovely jaunt into the me’s that make up me, meeting figures such as the Critic, the Host, Anger (eventually), Wounded Child, WOW, Adventurer, Carer, Performer, Writer/Artist, Dancer, Time (Come on!) and Cheeky Child. And about 10 more but we don’t have time. It can be a daunting process but already having worked with Holly I knew we would be able to bring laughter and fun into the process, and that she would hold care and lightness to the crunchier bits

The INTERESTING part is seeing how these types relate to each other, and figuring out what each one wants/needs. We were able to learn a lot about where some of these parts have arisen from, the Critic for example has a lot to say about theatre and making me into a successful star of the stage, so, as you can imagine, is not best pleased and my movements away from this, trying to find stability elsewhere. (The Critic would like you to know I will absolutely still do performances on the stage).

Now it is at this point where I feel the tug of - are you slightly barmy/mad/losing it? Different voices, different parts, what are you on about? For me, and my busy brain of many impulses and needs, Fooling feels like a healthy gateway to get to know these competing needs better, and to deepen the understand of myself in a way that lets me look at myself from a distance. And also I’m FASCINATING. Who knew my Money part felt so hated.

Moving forward (thank you Organiser). Day two, for those of you still interested, involved reconstituting this map. Should the Host and the Critic be next to each other, what happens when we put Disassociation and the Dancer together, is the best front line of me at the moment Carer, Adventurer, and Performer? Oh no we’ve left Anger and No! next to each other. I felt some resistance to this at times, which we were also able to explore. This felt like a great tool to work out aims that feel vital to me know, and also tentative steps towards other things I have yet to work out (why is Money so resistant to get up from lying on the floor?).

It has been a lovely ride of a time, and I feel a deeper connection to myself, and it is definitely a reflection process I'll be taking forward with me.

If any of this tickles your fancy come to the 5-day Fools School in Sheffield, May 19-23 [or Bristol 30 June - 4 July].

Bye my darlings!

Charlie

Find out more about Charlie and his work here.

If you'd like to read about another 2-day 'Assembling Your Inner Cast' process I facilitated for another artist last year, click here.

If you're interested in coming to the 5-day Fooling course, I've got two coming up in Sheffield May 19-23rd and Bristol 30 June - 4 July. Application deadline for both is 7th April. More info and application form here.