
Big Top
Something Rhymes with Purple
00:00
The Origin of Clowns
The origin of clown is quite interesting, because it began meaning an unsophisticated country person and then was applied to anybody who was kind of rude or mannered. It came from german, sos, a germanic word which didn't appear in english until the middle ages. And i think even if you play festy an twelfth night, which i've done, you're struggling at times to to get the the house on a roaro. Some people sort of groan at the idea of a clown coming on and being so obviously dressed to be clownish. As for example, the clowns in shakespeare am ofn the least funny characters you takea play
Transcript
Play full episode