Funny things, clowns. Often funny ha-ha, but always funny peculiar. The tears of a clown has become a bit of a cliché – think Il Pagliacci – but anyone hiding behind a jovial mask is a bit creepy – think Stephen King’s It. When you think about their usual proximity to children it all becomes a bit sinister. So, on balance, more peculiar than funny. There were very few laughs in Justin Butcher’s Scaramouche Jones in which the eponymous red-nosed hero told us the story of his life and times.
Born at the dawn of the twentieth-century Scaramouche’s life spanned precisely 100 years and we witnessed it’s culmination after his final performance. We learn how he was born to a whore and, he believed, and English father, in Port au Prince in Trinidad and how his pre-clown life ended in prison in Germany convicted of complicity in war crimes. Colourful? – I should say.
But it was not colour that defined him, it was his white face. Initially it marked him out as different due to his English blood and pale complexion in non-white skinned environments, then as a side effect of throwing lime on corpses in a concentration camp burial pit and finally self-imposed, as a clown. Was the whole thing laden with symbolism or was it just a cracking good yarn? I was never quite sure. With world-wide locations and a firmament of characters there was certainly enough to keep us enthralled for ninety minutes. This was a rich mix which swirled and flowed, never stopping to take breath. Although it read like a compendium of Boys’ Own adventures and some of it was rather derivative – his birth onto a fishmonger’s slab was very reminiscent of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume and the concentration camp mime reminded me of the film Life is Beautiful, I was captivated throughout.
When the play was first produced in 2002 it was generally torn to pieces by the critics in spite of Pete Postlethwaite’s performance. I don’t know if the play has been tweaked since then but I thought I was rather well written.
Although the story would make a very readable book, and perhaps is more suitable for a radio play, it provides a vehicle for which any actor of a certain age would gladly give his eye teeth. Alan Coveney gave a faultless, tour de force performance that was a privilege to witness. However, again in the Everyman Studio, the audience for an outstanding play was very meagre which was pity as this production deserved much more. I recommend it. ★★★★☆ Michael Hasted 17th September 2016
