Review: Clown Sex At The Wardrobe Theatre

Clown Sex is on in Bristol this week. It’s a Twilight Zone of the bizarre

Clown Sex is taboo busting sex version of creepy horror stories told on a stormy night when the power goes out.

Gary Strange lives in the London sewers. He is using the underground Victorian system as his habitat due to the cost of living crisis and extortionate rent in the capital. He revels in the environment, using a tape recorder to capture tales of sex stories he overhears through the plumbing.

It sounds strange and it is strange, yet as a piece of theatre, somehow that strangeness works.

What follows is a triptych of tales brought together by Gary. Two have been overheard through bathroom plumbing. The third is Gary’s own personal experience – of clown sex.

The show is both written and performed by Natasha Sutton Williams. It’s quite possibly one of the strangest shows you could ever see. It moves between humour, drama and the grotesque. At some points, it pushes you to the limits before you’re almost out. At other times, there felt like so much more to hear. This was particularly so in the very first story.

This is one of a primary school teacher. One who hates her job and finds thoughts of sex invading her mind as she struggles through her day. The pervading thoughts are inspired by sex positions she has seen in a magazine. Her sad story of desperation and loneliness leads to tragedy at work. It takes you to the brink of needing a resolution yet pulls away in a different direction.

That getting to the brink and pulling away is mirrored in the second story. This is an eavesdropped tale of an affluent journalist oversharing an unplanned encounter with a cat to a complete a stranger. Her phone has lost charge ahead of an interview for a CEO role. The unfortunate person who helps her out with a charger is burdened with a whole story about a cat sex experience. The whole thing feels uncomfortable and voyeuristic, with a coercive power play from the CEO, who refuses to entertain two-way discussion.

The third story is that of Gary’s own. The night he had sex with a circus clown. This one just gets down and dirty with the details and will leave you with some pretty severe Coulrophobia.

Clown Sex is audacious rather than offensive. It has taut writing and strong storytelling alongside comedy and physical performance. Sutton Williams embodies each character brilliantly in this hideously wonderful piece of theatre.

Clown Sex is on at the Wardrobe Theatre until 09 March 2024

For more information or to book: https://thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/clown-sex/

Cast and Creatives
Written and performed by Natasha Sutton Williams
Produced by Steph J Weller
Directed by François Testory and Phoebe Ladenburg
Lighting Design by Robert Wells

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