Frankenstein without pants: This may be the show you didn’t know you needed

In Classic Penguins, Garry Starr – the alter-ego of clown and actor Damien Warren-Smith – is trying to save the world of literature.

All without wearing pants.

Starr believes penguins wrote Classic Penguins, so naturally he dresses for the part, wearing just an Elizabethan ruffle, top hat, jacket and flippers.

In the show, which won top prize at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Starr acts out the titles of classics including Frankenstein, The Wind in The Willows and Gulliver’s Travels.

Part of the fun of the show is guessing which book the oblivious but enthusiastic Starr is recreating. There are silly puns, physical comedy, plenty of audience interaction – he selects someone to pelt him with grapes in homage to a certain John Steinbeck classic – and even crowd-surfing.

Garry Starr: Expect silly puns, physical comedy and even crowd surfing.Credit:

Warren-Smith, 43, only includes willing audience members in his show but says the best participants are those “who are a little bit hesitant”.

“If they’re too confident, the audience questions if they’re a plant. But when someone is a little bit uncomfortable to get up there, I honestly believe that everyone comes out succeeding. A lot of people have said to me, ‘I was terrified of audience participation. But I’m not after seeing that; it felt so safe’.

“The volunteers are not the butt of the joke; it’s always me who ends up looking ridiculous.

“In a world outside [of a clown show], no absolutely means no. In a theatre, no doesn’t always mean no because the person who first goes ‘no’ is probably going to get the most out of it, and the audience is going to love them more than anyone else.”

If you’re wondering how a naked penguin and audience interaction mesh, Warren-Smith says both he and his audience often forget about the nudity.

“If you see something a lot, you just get used to it,” he says.

Starr would have you believe the show is written by penguins.Credit:

“But then you remember it at the right moment. Like if someone’s up on stage about to give me a hug, then you’re like, ‘Oh, of course, he’s naked’. I forget too; I go to hug someone and then they sort of pull their hips back.”

The ancient art form is having a moment ... [clowns] are now among the most popular acts on the comedy circuit.

Having discovered clowning after a successful but creatively unfulfilling acting career, Warren-Smith says the ancient art form is having a moment. Clowns like Zach Zucker, Julia Masli and Britain’s Got Talent Winner Viggo Venn, who were all in his class at the legendary École Philippe Gaulier clown school, are now among the most popular acts on the comedy circuit.

“It is a really exciting time for clown. I think with the way the world is, there’s a lot of stuff that people need to escape and clown is pure escapism; there’s nothing political or controversial.”

He also believes a clown show is the ultimate antidote to our era of screen time overload. “Clown seems to be the furthest you can get from Netflix because it’s immediate and interactive. It’s whatever happens in the room that night, and no one else will ever experience that.”

Warren-Smith is currently working on a television project for Starr. He says the electricity of the live show is tricky to replicate on screen.

“I love the collective experience and that feeling of ‘it could be me’ [being part of the show]. Having someone completely lose their mind over a puerile gag is often enough to spread throughout the theatre and make it become something more. You just don’t get that if it’s not live.”

Garry Starr: Classic Penguins is at Grand Electric, Surry Hills, from September 3 to October 12

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