Seriously clowning around

I should tell you that the scrapping takes place with the opponents several metres apart (that's about 10ft in old money) and always ends in tears - of laughter.

Strawberry, aka Fraser Hooper, is, if you can pick him out from the line-up above, a clown. He has won awards from everywhere, teaches and runs workshops for everyone from kids to corporate types as well as people interested in brushing up on circus skills. And he is very, very serious about it.

His graceful and understated style (much of it developed from the cerebral yet playful approach of the legendary Nola Rae) informs the work of hot-ticket companies like Kneehigh Theatre.

But, he insists, it's not acting. "It's just you and a problem."

I booked seats as soon as I saw his new show billed at the Arts Centre in the Lincolnshire town of Stamford - the superb setting for the TV Middlemarch, not far the other side of Leicester and easily driveable from my home base.

Inside Out involves Fraser and soundman/foil Matt Rudkin plus a door and some of the most enjoyable and wittiest clowning I've ever seen. On the way out the hardened usherette said to me, "You enjoyed that more than the kids ..." as a statement of fact, adding, "It was wonderful." That's like a comedian getting a laugh from the band!

As this is a blog, I won't bore you with any Billingtonesque waffle about the performance and the Zen insights of play. Go to fraserhooper.com and watch the show reel and you'll be convinced.

But the real revelation was the workshop after the show. I got permission to stay as the sole adult throughout and watched fascinated as he passed on very simple tricks and interesting insights into the whole rhythm of being funny to a rehearsal room full of kids aged between five and nine.

That's where the joke fighting came in. Try it. Karate chop the air and watch your partner's head knocked sideways across the other side of the room. Let it happen to you then show your reaction to a phantom audience, Oliver Hardy style. Try one of you being loud while the other is subdued. The contrast makes it funny. It's like becoming a cartoon.

Fraser's off across the globe in the next few months and at festivals like Glastonbury. Check his website to get details of dates near us - there are a few in the East Midlands and Leicestershire. I'm booking our next show in the morning.