Tears for a clown – but Philippe Gaulier leaves the stage in good humour

Photographs by Manuel Braun

The crowd clapped, whooped and cheered as the casket descended into the chamber to be cremated, the raucous applause a final act of defiance. Known for his brutal wit, Philippe Gaulier was as feared as he was admired by generations of actors, theatre troupes and comedians, hundreds of whom packed the chapel at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris last Wednesday to bid him farewell, leaving flowers, red noses and even a banana on his coffin.

In the early hours of Thursday, after the wake, some 50 former students packed into a bar and , deftly rearranged the furniture and somehow hooked up a mobile phone to the television while beers and croque monsieurs were passed around. They played a video compilation of more than 300 clowns from around the world smashing plates in homage to Gaulier and his greatest performance piece, a noisy celebration of his enduring work – the rejection of all that is boring. A funeral for a clown was never going to be conventional. And Gaulier, who died this month aged 82, was by no accounts a conventional man.

His death marks the end of an era for stage and screen. Gaulier taught theatre through the essence of being a clown: there were no oversized shoes or undersized cars in sight, but instead the search for a raw humanity rooted in what he called the pleasure to be on stage. Over 50 years, actors flocked to the mischievous Frenchman. His alumni include Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Geoffrey Rush and Roberto Benigni, the Oscar-winning star of Life Is Beautiful.

In a video message played at Gaulier’s wake, Sacha Baron Cohen, who attended Ecole Philippe Gaulier in the 1990s when it briefly relocated to London from a small town near Paris, said: “I was a Jewish kid from north-west London. Everyone became estate agents and lawyers and doctors. That changed because of one man – Philippe Gaulier. Philippe gave me the confidence and told me, ‘You should pursue this,’” he said, adding: “I will miss you Philippe … you transformed my life.”

Gaulier had dreamed of being “a very serious tragic actor”, his sons said in their eulogy. But his attempts at dramatic acting prompted only laughter, so he was sent to study clowning with Jacques Lecoq. After graduating, he created Les Assiettes, a double act that involved smashing 200 plates every night. The show was so popular it toured the world for 10 years.

A lifelong anarchist, much of his approach involved encouraging performers to revel in being “bad students”. Nobody was spared his sharp tongue. Balthazar Gaulier, his son, said: “I remember being eight, nine years old around the table and being told I was boring. We got trained quite early in what it was to be entertaining, to be spontaneous, to be sort of light when we were in conversations.”

His father’s famous students and other contemporary artists would spend time in the family home, and Balthazar, 39, said it was his younger brother Samuel who had inspired Baron Cohen’s breakthrough character Ali G. “I remember going to a party at the school with my brother who had a big, bright yellow jumpsuit on,” he said. “I hear Sacha came on in class the week after in a bright yellow jumpsuit and did this imitation. That brought him his first show.”

Gaulier’s theatre course, which Michiko Miyazaki Gaulier, his widow and a former student, will continue to run, includes Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, Chekhov and melodrama. He taught the clown module himself until 2023, goading and teasing his students to help free them from socialised niceties and fears of failure.

He would use a drum to cue performers on and off, often in quick succession with a cry of “suivant!” (“next!”) if he sensed their enthusiasm was lacking. Occasionally, when unimpressed, he would hold up a small plastic turd. At the wake, students invariably imitated his growling French accent, constant teasing and famous catchphrases – “boring”, “'orrible”, and even “completely unfuckable”.

“You were either brilliant or you were absolute shit,” said Mick Barnfather, who will teach this summer’s clown class at Gaulier’s school, as rain fell around the tombs in Paris at Paris’s most famous cemetery. “There was no halfway house.” Recounting his first short course with Gaulier, Barnfather, who went on to perform with the Complicité theatre company, said he had left the bench to take on an improvised task when the teacher began to make the sound of a phone ringing. He dutifully answered, and Gaulier said: “Hello, is that Bench Tours? I want a one-way ticket to the bench. Thank you very much. You’re really bad. Sit down.”

“He was absolutely right,” Barnfather said. “He never took any prisoners. His comments were always delivered with a huge humanity though. He was like your worst audience, really – if you could get through Philippe Gaulier, then you could get through any audience.”

Viggo Venn, who won Britain’s Got Talent in 2023, studied at Gaulier from 2014-2016,alongside a batch of talented clowns including Julia Masli, Elf Lyons and Zach Zucker, all of whom went on to huge success es, selling out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe and touring the world. The Norwegian, who won the ITV talent show with an act that involved dancing enthusiastically while taking off a surprising number of hi-vis vests, said he had drawn on Gaulier in his relationship with Simon Cowell on the show. “Simon plays a very similar role, and I was used to playing with authority from school.”

Venn, who has since returned to teach at the school, said the class of 2016 has remained close, adding that the training created special bonds from seeing people try to get a laugh – and fail. “When you see people flop, you really get to know their hearts. You see them so vulnerable.”

Bafta-winning comedian and actor Luke Rollason said: “He was amazing at creating an environment where the stakes at the same time felt incredibly high and also, ultimately, nothing was to be taken seriously.” One group of former pupils bickered over who had given Gaulier their class’s gossip, which he exchanged for champagne. Other former students recounted life-changing experiences at the school and Gaulier’swit, with one group still bickering about who had told Gaulier the gossip in their year, which he exchanged for champagne.

Also at the wake was Angela De Castro, who runs the Why Not Institute teaching clown in London and travelled with friends made on his course in Paris in 1989. De Castro, 70, who helped develop the clown spectacle Slava’s Snowshow. They said, they said: “He set me in the right direction, to look for the pleasure to be, the confidence to be myself as a person and as a clown and to be as bold as I can.”

In a film about his life screened for the first time on the night of the wake, Gaulier, whose ashes will be scattered off the coast of Brittany, gave a final reminder to his students: “Don’t follow the teacher too much. Listen to the teacher… yes, but your passion, your life, your fun, your humour – it’s your secret. So follow this secret.”