A visit to the Gaulier clown school – home to alumni including Sacha Baron Cohen and Emma Thompson – reveals that clowning is all about the art of failure.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
At a famed clown school near Paris, students are taught how to fail. They pay for it. They’re critiqued on it and sometimes humiliated by it. Reporter Rebecca Rosman got a rare peek inside the classroom where flopping is mandatory and what matters is what students do next.
REBECCA ROSMAN, BYLINE: Few things are more terrifying than the idea of stepping onto a stage, staring out at a room full of strangers and hoping desperately that you can make them laugh.
UNIDENTIFIED PRESENTER: Six acts.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED PRESENTER: Should we go into the first?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROSMAN: This is the Ecole Philippe Gaulier, where people have been paying – yes, paying – to risk public embarrassment for more than 40 years. And tonight, I’m the one watching students perform short acts where the punch line is almost always a pie in the face.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: And I just do it.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSMAN: Everyone is in costume, red noses and all – a giraffe, a mermaid, a man in a sombrero. Their assignment? Be funny. They usually aren’t.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: Don’t hurt me. I’m just a little boy.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: Give me one of those pies.
ROSMAN: People come from all over the world to study here – doctors, priests, actors. They gather in the small town of Etampes, about an hour south of Paris, where they regularly endure feedback like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PHILIPPE GAULIER: We were not laughing. We were embarrassed. We are not sure if you are happy to see us.
ROSMAN: That’s Philippe Gaulier, the school’s founder, speaking to students during a workshop the BBC recorded back in 2015. For Gaulier, clowning isn’t about technique. It’s about play. But he says not everyone is built for this work.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GAULIER: This pleasure to be ridiculous, this pleasure to have a special humor – no, no. It’s given to some people, but not everybody.
ROSMAN: A stroke three years ago forced Gaulier to retire from full-time teaching. But his fingerprints are everywhere here, shaping every exercise, every critique and every nervous student hoping for a laugh. Just like his predecessor, instructor Carlo Jacucci doesn’t mince words.
CARLO JACUCCI: I see two clowns looking aimlessly in this direction and wasting our time.
ROSMAN: Jacucci, a matter-of-fact Franco Italian who has been teaching here for more than a decade, sits with a drum between his legs. And when it sounds…
(SOUNDBITE OF DRUM)
JACUCCI: Thank you.
ROSMAN: …It’s time.
JACUCCI: Welcome, everyone. The worst moment of the class – now we have reached it. It will not be worse than this.
ROSMAN: The worst moment. They call it le flop -the part everyone dreads. But it’s actually where the real work begins. Student Gabriela Flarys is from Brazil.
GABRIELA FLARYS: OK. Should I be angry? With who?
(LAUGHTER)
JACUCCI: With me.
ROSMAN: She’s standing on the stage in an orange flamenco dress, looking confused. Something about her act just isn’t landing and needs more emotion. Jacucci tells her to get angry.
FLARYS: Carlo.
JACUCCI: Yes.
FLARYS: I’m pissed off.
JACUCCI: Oh, I feel so afraid.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSMAN: She gets louder and louder until something breaks loose.
FLARYS: Carlo. Carlo. Aah.
ROSMAN: And then she throws a pie at her stage partner.
FLARYS: I’m fed up of – oh, one sec. One. Just…
(SOUNDBITE OF PIE HITTING FACE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Woah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Woah.
(APPLAUSE)
ROSMAN: The room laughs with her. Even Jacucci looks stunned.
JACUCCI: Me – I am shocked. I didn’t know you could change.
ROSMAN: Cathartic moments like this have fueled a new generation of performers who are redefining what it means to clown.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZACH ZUCKER: I just want to get to know this crowd. This is truly one of the most beautiful crowds I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
ROSMAN: Among them? Zach Zucker.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZUCKER: If I may?
(LAUGHTER)
ZUCKER: May I approach?
ROSMAN: His alter ego, Jack Tucker, leads “Stamptown,” a high-energy, raunchy vaudeville variety show with a global following. A decade ago, Zucker was working for Gaulier alum Sacha Baron Cohen in Los Angeles when he heard Philippe was in town, teaching a workshop.
ZUCKER: And five minutes in, I saw Philippe work his magic, and I just could not believe what I was watching.
ROSMAN: Zucker had trained in American improv schools, Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade among them. But this felt different. Other places teach you how to succeed. Gaulier teaches you how to fail.
ZUCKER: Everyone’s good at being good. And if you can be good at being bad, then nothing is bad, and it’s enjoyable. And it’s actually more humbling.
ROSMAN: Zucker’s “Stamptown” leans into that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZUCKER: Sorry. I didn’t realize this crowd was laughtose-intolerant.
ROSMAN: And now it’s getting noticed. The show will run a special on a major streaming platform this year.
(APPLAUSE)
ROSMAN: But back in Etampes, success feels far away. Clowning here is still raw, still painful. After class, I find student Frank Benson from Melbourne still catching his breath.
FRANK BENSON: Oh, it was tough today.
ROSMAN: It was tough?
BENSON: It wasn’t a good day for me. Yeah. It was – I felt like – sometimes you go out and it flops really hard, and it’s not so fun.
ROSMAN: But he says he’s getting used to it. The disappointment passes faster now. And for some, it opens the door to something new. Here’s Gabriela Flarys again.
FLARYS: Nothing is a mistake if you play with it, if you’re being honest with the present moments, I think. This is the poetry of this school. Everything is open, and it’s poetry and possibilities. Nothing is defined.
ROSMAN: Nothing is a mistake if you play with it. That might be Philippe Gaulier’s legacy – learning how to stand in front of a room, bomb completely and keep going, even if there’s nothing to show for it in the end but a pie in the face.
Rebecca Rosman, NPR News, Etampes, France.
SIMON: Oof. But no clowning around.
BJ Leiderman does our theme music.
(SOUNDBITE OF DELICATE STEVE’S “NEARLY EVERYTHING”)
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
