Conville & Walsh

A man goes into the doctors, ‘Doctor,’ he says, ‘can you help me? Life doesn’t seem worth living, and I am shrouded in constant gloom.’ ‘My good man,’ says the doctor, taking a good look at the melancholy face before him, ‘there is only one cure for you. You must go and see Grimaldi the clown.’ ‘Sir,’ replies the patient, ‘I am Grimaldi the clown.’

Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) was a pioneering performer and the superstar of the Georgian pantomime, inventing the clown’s ‘slap’ as we know it – white face paint, red nose, wig, flouncy trousers, and huge shoes – for which he was nicknamed Joe Frankenstein, as his appearance was greatly influenced Mary Shelley. An innovator, an acrobat, a comic genius, equally treasured by the fashionable set and the provincial public alike, his clowning brought national celebrity, enormous fees, and a social circle that included Lord Byron.

Fascinatingly, the young Charles Dickens was his biographer. Despite his fame he was a profound depressive suffering from hereditary madness. His life was marked by numerous tragedies and incapacitating bouts of insecurity and self-doubt. Poor business-sense left him penniless, but worse, he was prematurely crippled by the leaps and pratfalls that had so delighted his audience. Grimaldi is not just another faded star made pitiful by passing time, for his contribution to popular culture is lasting and unique. By his actions and his dress, his song and routines, but, most importantly, his complicated emotional life, Grimaldi changed the perception of the comedian in the modern world, became its blueprint, single-handedly creating an instantly recognizable type.

Andy Stott has written an impressive debut biography and a stunning piece of social history anchored by impeccable research, sewing together melodrama, a rich seam of anecdote and analysis with a keen eye for telling and colourful detail. Yet for all its grand symbolism and broader sociological arguments, the book never loses sight of the simple fact that this is a human story of a really funny man who, amidst all the laughter and the adulation, couldn’t find what it was that would make him happy. The book provides a fascinating investigation of theatre history and the roots of modern comedy, as well as the intriguing history of ‘melancholia’. It will be a classic of London literature, ranking among the works of Lisa Jardine, Amanda Foreman, Claire Tomlain and Peter Ackroyd.