Brighton Clown School offers physical comedy and theatre training classes for beginners and professionals.

Inspired by the practices of Philippe Gaulier and Jacques Lecoq, its practitioners are experienced teachers and performers who will help you to learn more about physical theatre and the art form known as ‘clowning’.

Why ‘Clown School’?

Modern theatrical clowning comes from a desire to return performance to play, authenticity, and the expressive body, an impulse linked to French director Jacques Copeau (1879-1949).

Copeau emphasised physical training, improvisation, mask work and creative failure. This approach later influenced Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier, who reframed clowning not as a fixed character rooted in circus tradition, but as a state of play, presence and exposure in front of an audience.

In this sense, Brighton Clown School reclaims the word “clown” to describe actor training that is physical, playful, and rigorous, where comedy and theatre grow from presence, responsiveness, failure and embodied physicality.