Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. A process which Danish clown Paolo Nani has refined into an art form to great comedic effect.

Performing what is essentially a classic improvisation game, one which featured prominently in the Clive Anderson-hosted Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Paolo re-enacts a commonplace scene in a variety of different ways. Fifteen, to be precise.

The main difference between the television show and Nani’s internationally renowned production, which has been touring and evolving for nigh on three decades to over 1600 audiences in over 40 countries, is that whereas the dramatic styles of the former are suggested by the host and the audience, Nani’s come in the form of pre-written captions which are flashed at the audience with a deadpan look.

The bones of the scene being the drinking and spitting out of a glass of wine which prompts a furious letter of complaint written with an inkless pen. Nothing to see here, you think. Jog on.

Only, when you take into account Nani’s mastery of body, material and audience, the increasing level of challenge he sets himself (“armless”) and the comical interaction between performer and audience, there is only one word for it and that is – genius!

Hence the following rapturous review from Italy’s second most widely-read newspaper La Repubblica: “one of the world’s greatest clowns”.

The only thing missing, perhaps, is a depth of emotion – say, sadness or loneliness – but from beginning to end it’s a meticulously crafted and marvelously performed hoot. Particular crowd-pleasers being the drunk scribbler who finds himself wearing a chair and the gun-toting cowboy who shoots himself in the foot. Not an accusation you could level at Nani who unlike his fifteen bumbling contortionists never puts a foot wrong.

Peter Callaghan
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