Send In The Clowns

Send in the clowns is an often used phrase by circus people when the current entertainment that they are providing is not meeting the liking of the audience. So they send in the clowns to try to change the mood with laughter.

During this last century, in the circus of life, there have been many times that we have sent in the clowns to change the mood when we have been in our darkest hours.

World War One, 1914 to 1918, the Great Depression, 1929 to 1939, World War Two, 1939 to 1945, the Falklands War, 1982 and the First Gulf War, 1990 to 1991.

In 1914 Charlie Chaplin made, Making a Living. That same year he made thirty four more short films. These early silent shorts allowed very little time for anything but physical comedy, and Chaplin was a master at it.

Chaplin’s slapstick acrobatics made him famous, but the subtleties of his acting made him great. For Chaplin, the best way to find the pathos of a situation was to create an environment and walk around it until something natural happened. Chaplin saw in film an opportunity to control the environment enough to allow subtlety to come through.

Buster Keaton is considered to be one of the greatest comic actors of all time. He had acrobatic skills and was a psychologically insightful actor.

For years he was knocked over, thrown through windows, dropped down stairs, and essentially used as a living prop. It was this training in vaudeville that prepared him for the fast-paced slapstick comedy of the silent movies.

In 1917, Keaton moved to Hollywood, where the bulk of Keaton's major work was done during the 1920s. Writing, directing, and staring in these films, Keaton created a world unlike the other comic stars of the time.

Laurel and Hardy were a popular comedy team composed of the thin, British-born Stan Laurel and the heavy, American-born Oliver Hardy. They became famous during the early half of the 20th century for their work in motion pictures and also appeared on stage throughout America and Europe.

Laurel and Hardy officially became a team in 1926 and soon became famous and lucrative stars. Among their most popular and successful films were the features Sons of the Desert, 1933, Way Out West, 1937, and Block-Heads, 1938.

Throughout World War II, Bob Hope's radio shows were performed live by him and broadcast from the military bases all over the United States and also in the war zones of Europe and the South Pacific.

And Bob Hope first became involved in the combat zones in 1943 when he visited the US military bases in England, Africa, Sicily and Ireland. In the following years his itinerary included the South Pacific and the Gulf War.

Morecambe and Wise developed their act in the dying days of the Music Hall and Variety Theatre and though times were sometimes hard, they persevered and eventually began to make headway.

By the late sixties they were regulars on the TV which proved to be the duo's forte.

Two of a Kind, which became the Morecambe and Wise Show, ran on ATV for six series, from 1961 to 1967, then they were offered a contract at the BBC and things really took off.

Eric and Ernie went into superstardom with the British public, they made a total of nine series for the BBC, culminating with their 1977 Christmas show which was watched by an audience of 28,835,000.