On April 5th and 6th 2025, Robyn Hambrook, Holly Stoppit and Jan Wozniak hosted a 2-day Clown Congress at Bristol University.

52 Clowns from many different backgrounds gathered together to explore the future of clowning in turbulent times through play, discussion and creative reflection (You’ll be able to find out more about what actually happened in the next blog!). 

Our event captured the attention of the British media who hounded us for interviews in the days leading up to and during the event. 

With all the terrible, painful, heartbreaking and depressing things happening in the world right now, never has a good news story been more desperately needed!

Holly Stoppit In The Guardian (again)

This was Holly’s third Guardian interview this year (thanks to the world going to shit / the sudden media interest in all things clown). This time Holly was interviewed by Steven Morris under the headline: Send in the clowns: Bristol congress to explore role of comedy in tricky times.

Steven asked good questions and wrote a clear description of what would be taking place at the Clown Congress. He also managed to squeeze some sort of click bait Trump quote out of Holly, which had clearly been his main aim from the start!:

“Donald Trump’s name is bound to come up. Some clowns hate it when Trump is dismissed as a clown. Stoppit said: “Many clowns take offence to that. And also when politics is described as a circus, it’s like, do you know how hard we work? And how organised things have to be?”

But Stoppit says Trump does dip into a dark “bouffon” style of clowning. “It’s kind of exaggerated and it’s parody. He’s a parody of himself in his image, in his speech, in his thinking, in his gestures and his mannerisms.””

Here is the Guardian interview

Robyn Hambrook in The Daily Star

Robyn was interviewed by James Caven in an article titled: Clowns face extinction as they plot plan to save profession at crisis meeting. The article was adorned by stock pictures of painted clowns, scary clowns and politicians dressed as clowns. 

Robyn came across as pithy and eloquent, despite Caven’s relentless desire to take the piss:

“Our politicians are often lambasted for acting like clowns. But it turns out that this may have rubbed a few red-nosed funsters up the wrong way.

Real-life jokers think they’re actually much more responsible than our useless leaders who can never accept when they’re wrong.

The clowns believe they can teach us far more about the world, as opposed to a bunch of inept layabouts who never take any responsibility.”

Here is the Daily Star interview

Holly Stoppit on the telly

Holly was interviewed by BBC Breakfast and BBC News on the first day of the Clown Congress. She zoomed in from her living room, which was weird because she couldn’t see what was happening in either of the studios. 

Being able to see, sense and respond is very important in clowning - it’s a responsive artform that requires huge sensitivity and compassion. So it was kind of like playing darts with a blindfold on and her hands tied behind her back.

To add some visual and comedic interest, BBC breakfast brought Bibbledibob, a traditional painted clown, onto the studio sofa. Holly had no idea what he or the two presenters looked like or what they were doing. Holly’s somewhat startled face was beamed large onto a screen in the studio. 

In the evening, Holly zoomed into BBC news, where again, she couldn’t see the interviewer or the traditional circus clowning footage they chose to play during the interview. 

Holly can’t remember much about what happened in either interview and is thankful that these recordings expired after 24 hours!

Robyn Hambrook and Jan Wozniak on the radio

Robyn spoke on BBC Radio Devon and Cornwall, Jan spoke on LBC and we were asked to speak on Radio 5 Live and Radio Wales, but the timings didn’t work out.

Conclusions

We were not expecting a media circus! We are really grateful for the media interest, but they showed up late to the party! We were in the final stages of organising our event and the press were very pushy and demanding of our time. Through this experience, we have learned a lot about how to hold our line during interviews. 

‘Clowns’ and ‘clowning’ bring up particular images and assumptions and it’s easy for the media to go for the click-bait angle, but it’s up to us to stay centred and keep bringing the conversation back to what really matters to us. We are interested in the personal and political applications of clowning. We know from our own experiences that clowning can catalyse inner and outer transformation. We will continue to create spaces for clowns from all backgrounds to gather, share their experiences and inspire each other. Next time we’ll have a press clown who can do all the interviews!