Paulina Lenoir, Piotr Sikora, Lil Wenker

Before embracing clowning, Paulina Lenoir studied design. "I realised the objects I was making could not exist in the real world," she says over a Zoom call.

While at Central Saint Martins, Lenoir and a like-minded student and friend were tasked with designing a washing machine. "We designed one for post-apocalyptic future, with a swing that collected rainwater. The clothes underneath," she says. "Then for my final degree project, I made these long, heavy shoes. I was fascinated with how design and architecture influence people's rhythm. And living in London, we're forced to be fast. It was a way to protest against an imposed speed of the city," she says, then adding: "But they were basically a big pair of clown shoes."

She speaks while surrounded by costumes, dresses she wears on stage. She holds up a white one: "This one was a 'cloud'. The theme was the afterlife." Then she picks up a green dress: "Cabbage" she says. 

Lenoir debuts her solo comedy hour at Assembly through the eyes of her character, the dreamlike, poetic fool, Puella Eterna. She brings a whole world of influences into her creation. "I'm inspired by the characters in Fellini films: There's this film he made called Juliet of the Spirits. It's this sort of wife at home, but she has this old fantastical world which she goes into. It's like parallel universes, and all these people are dressed up with feathers and huge hats."

Then there's fashion critic Diane Pernet: "She's dressed in perpetual mourning. She has tall hair and a veil and created an iconic look"; Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven: Lenoir gives me the T on how Marcel Duchamp may have stolen the Baroness' idea, turning a urinal into the art-work The Fountain; the poet Edith Sidwell: "She was in love with a peacock when she was young." She adds: "That's kind of the world... This poet character I created, she was born from an existential crisis I was having. And then at the time I was studying flamenco as well. And I found the melodrama funny, you know, there's something about the tragic that is hilarious."

Her enthusiasm for the arts and folding them into her character perhaps stems from wonder cultivated as a child: "That's where I find joy; from when I was little, I used to dress up all my friends. I love playing dress up."

Lil Wenker / Photo by Hudson Hughes

Lil Wenker is also bringing her first show BANGTAIL, to the Pleasance; a cowboy epic merging Spaghetti Western films and accountancy – together at last. The origins of her show also stem from childhood. "The whole genesis of the show comes from watching Westerns with my Dad when I was a little girl. We'd stay up, that was our thing."

Reflecting on her father's influence on her show, she says: "He's a lovely, very soft, Midwestern accountant who loves cowboys and Clint Eastwood's characters. My Dad is the inspiration in a very loose way. It's kind of a modern tale of this cowboy: what would it be like to have a cowboy in a Midwestern accountancy office? What does a modern man do and how does he find his purpose?"

Wenker's other influences are based on classic comedy films, starting in the silent era: "The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton." She credits co-creator and director Cecily Nash (who had a hit at last year's Fringe with TROLL) for her eye for physical comedy: "She has an amazing eye for that. She's helped me trace out my thinking, both in a way that's true and untrue, but also feels right for the kind of the show that I've been wanting to make."

Both Lenoir and Wenker trained with master clown Gaulier in Paris. Afterwards, they found themselves in the good company of fellow clowns. As Wenker explains: "On good days it's a community, on bad days it's a cult! But it's so wonderful. This is why I moved to the UK; this is where the clowns are."

Piotr Sikora would agree on finding belonging with other clowns off-stage. "Usually people who are doing clown are nice people and kind people. We usually know each other or hear about each other and support each other."

Sikora returns to Edinburgh with his word-of-mouth hit Furiozo: Man Looking For Trouble. The punk-rock comedy now comes to Underbelly with Sikora's hooligan-with-a-heart exploring fury and masculinity.

Furiozo / photo by Alan Moyle

Starting in improv, Sikora found there was no turning back once he discovered clowning. 

"Clown is a curse," he says, "When you see it, you cannot not see it. Then step by step, I was going into the dark side."

What show could possibly make such a life-changing impression? "Nate by Natalie Palamides," he says. "It was like opening the doors to a different universe. It showed me the possibilities of contemporary clown."

Sikora's character Furiozo draws inspiration from diverse sources, from Polish hip-hop to the Netflix series Furioza. "I cannot say that I was inspired by the movie itself. But there's a character played by a Polish actor called Mateusz Damięcki. It's an incredible character and Furioza is an association of hooligans."

While Sikora's Furiozo is "comedic, dangerous and super crazy" it's also a tribute to 'hooligans' gained from an adult perspective on the experiences of living as a child in Poland at a time of huge political and culture change, fearing those expressing their anger. "When I was a kid I was afraid of them, but now I see they were just trying to survive. They were trying to create something and share it through their hip-hop. Polish hip-hop, Polish punk rock. So it's coming from my culture. But what I like about this show is that it's very Polish, but at the same time, very universal.

"It's important for me in the show not to make fun of hooligans because I think it would be very easy. As much as they're aggressive and a bit of a dangerous group, I treat them as a rejected group. Usually, it comes from poverty, from a lot of very difficult factors. It is hardly ever a conscious choice.

"I try to defend my character in a way to show something more than only those things that are stupid and funny."