The son of a deranged Italian immigrant, Joseph Grimaldi (1778–1837) was the most celebrated of English clowns. The first to use white-face make-up and wear outrageous coloured clothes, he transformed the role of the Clown in the pantomime with a look as iconic as Chaplin’s tramp or Tommy Cooper’s magician. One of the first celebrity comedians, his friends included Lord Byron and the actor Edmund Kean, and his memoirs were edited by the young Charles Dickens.

Drawing on a wealth of source material, Stott has written the definitive biography of Grimaldi and a highly nuanced portrait of Georgian theatre in London.

Praise for The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi:

‘It presents a fantastic panorama of stage history, tracing how pantomime, of all unlikely pastimes, rose to be the most popular and lucrative British art form at a time when the rest of Europe was convulsed by the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars.’

— The Times

‘Always vivacious and engaged…Stott endorses the judgement that Grimaldi, originator of the “sad clown”, was the spiritual father of Chaplin, Sellars and Hancock, and stimulates the reader into making connections beyond those he makes explicit.’

— Herald

‘A round of applause is due to this exuberant, impassioned portrait, for bringing the great Grimaldi, ‘Joey the Clown’, into the limelight again.’

— Guardian

‘A detailed and extremely well written biography…Grimaldi is, in an age of flim-flam celebrity biography, a worthy subject and this is a first-rate study that is also a vivid portrait of the times.’

— Age

‘Today if we say the word “clown” the image that comes to mind is Joe Grimaldi…This biography is a monument to painstaking historical research…This marvellous biography may be read not only as the life of a tortured genius but also as a picture of Regency London. Grimaldi died 170 years ago but the traditional figure of the clown was his creation and his gift to theatre.’

— Canberra Times