London Clown Festival 2026 Celebrates 10 Years of Clowning Across London

London Clown Festival is delighted to announce its 10th anniversary line up, with another alley of the finest clowns from London and beyond. Artists from Poland, Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, Italy and the USA will be joining those from the UK to represent the best of home-grown and international clowning in the capital, in this annual fixture of the London comedy scene; a celebration of physical comedy and clown influenced contemporary performance. 

The London Clown Festival line up will be performing at Soho Theatre and Jacksons Lane from 30^th May through to 13^th July.

Continuing to champion contemporary clowning, London Clown Festival again gives a platform to a plethora of talented performers specialising in clown and physical performance with workshops also planned to offer further skills development for performers outside of the festival line-up, including Puppetry for Clowns: 2 Day Intensive Course, a workshop lead by Olivier nominated actress and puppeteer, Caroline Partridge.

The festival will open with The London Clown Festival Opening Cabaret, where you can see a mix of artists from across the festival alongside favourites who aren’t performing full shows this year. Audiences can see a little of what’s to come in the festival and choose shows to come back to see more of. This show sells out every year so it’s been moved to Jacksons Lane for 2026 so more people can come. The line up is:

• Lara Ricote 

• The LCF House Band

• Dan Lees and Tom Penn as The Sonic Joy Orchestra

• Maya Ricote

• Ella the Great

• Julia Masli

The Festival line up is another eclectic mix of performers who embody the principals of this timeless art form highlights include… 

Gaulier teacher and international performer, Carlo Jaccuci presents his one man show, VITAMIN which has garnered 4 and 5 star reviews the world over with its "Primitive simplicity and imaginative charm" ★★★★ (The Times);  filled with chaos in a box that refuses to stay shut; Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Josh Glanc brings a new show Josh Glanc: Work-in-progress show, It’s not finished and he doesn’t know what it will be eventually called, but he really wants to show you some of it. He might read from a script. He might improvise. Whatever happens, it’ll be very fun; Multi Award Winning (Offie, British Comedy Guide, Musical Comedy Award, Malcolm Hardee Award) “Master clown” (Threeweeks) Dru Cripps shares his debut phenomenally successful improvised loopstation-based shenanigans in Dru Cripps: Juicy Bits. Armed with nothing more than his trusty-crotch-fixed-loopstation, he transforms audience suggestions into improvised songs, spontaneous sketches, and “utterly winning” (Chortle) chaos; Gutter – A Bouffon Comedy Ritual is London's underground cult comedy night. Hosted by a vicious bouffon troupe - 'a little bit nasty' (Philippe Gaulier) who emerge from a bin to run the show, drawing the audience in and spitting them out irreversibly changed. If comedy is truth telling, bouffon is truth telling with teeth. The sell-out night has been nominated for a Chortle Award for Best Alternative and Clowning; International Art Clown Jamie Wood brings his sell-out success and one of the most talked about clown shows of the last 10 years Jamie Wood presents O No!, shortlisted for a Total Theatre Award for Experimentation and Innovation, it’s a psychedelic ride, and a wonky homage to the woman damned for destroying the Beatles. O No! borrows Yoko Ono’s art instructions to ask whether falling in love is always catastrophic. Funny and surprising in equal measure this show is about reckless optimism, avant-garde art and what we might yet have to learn from the hippies.

London Clown Festival was founded in 2016 with the aim to share the joy and exhilaration of clown and physical performance with a wide breadth of audiences as possible and help to expand the image of clown in the public consciousness. Founded by clown performers and teachers, Dan Lees and Henry Maynard, London Clown Festival is produced by Amee Smith.

London Clown Festival 2026 Full Line Up Of Shows

Sat 30^th May             19:00        Soho Theatre            London Clown Festival 2026 - Opening Cabaret  (120 mins + interval)

Mon 1^st June             18:45        Soho Theatre            Full Frontal Mikey Mode (60 mins)

Mon 1^st June             20:30        Soho Theatre            Blizzard (60 mins)

Tues 2^nd June            18:45        Soho Theatre            AY AM: MAYA RICOTE (60 mins)

Tues 2^nd June            20:30        Soho Theatre            Josh Glanc: Work-In-Progress Show (60 mins)

Wed 3^rd June            18:45        Soho Theatre            Lucy Hopkins & Lexi Strauss: Auntie Show and Nana Subversion Share Their Biscuits (60 mins)

Wed 3^rd June            20:30        Soho Theatre            Hear WE Ahh: ANGELS (60 mins)

Thurs 4^th June           18:45        Soho Theatre            Lawrence Dodd: This Can’t Be It (60 mins)

Thurs 4^th June           20:30        Soho Theatre            Tom Penn and Dan Lees: The Sonic Joy Orchestra (60 mins)

Thurs 4^th June           22:15        Soho Theatre            Dru Cripps: Juicy Bits (60 mins)

Fri 5^th June                18:45        Soho Theatre            Closure Cabaret (60 mins)

Fri 5^th June                20:30        Soho Theatre            Lil Wenker: BOYKING (WIP) (60 mins)

Fri 5^th June                22:15        Soho Theatre            Gutter – A Bouffon Comedy Ritual (60 mins)

Sat 6^th June               16:00        Soho Theatre            Do All The Things (60 mins)

Sat 6^th June               18:45        Soho Theatre            Moonkid (60 mins)

Sat 6^th June               20:30        Soho Theatre            Zoe Wohlfeld: DOG FUNERAL (60 mins)

Sat 6^th June               22:15        Soho Theatre            The Clong Show (60 mins)

Mon 8^th June            19:00        Jacksons Lane           Riss Obolensky: Stinky Little Pilgrim (60 mins)

Tues 9^th June            19:00        Jacksons Lane           Elf Lyons as The Woman On The Edge, A Work In Progress (60 mins)

Fri 12^th June              19:00        Jacksons Lane           VITAMIN (60 mins)

Sat 13^th June             19:00        Jacksons Lane           Jamie Wood presents O No! (60 mins)

London Clown Festival 2026 Family Shows

Sun 31^st May             11:00 & 14:00          Jacksons Lane           Funny Business: Fraser Hooper 60 mins)

Sat 13^th June             11:00 & 14:00          Jacksons Lane           Norman’s Big Day Out (60 mins)

London Clown Festival 2026 Workshops

Puppetry for Clowns: 2 Day Intensive Course  - Sat 6^th (11am-5pm) & Sun 7^th June (12pm-6pm)

For more in on workshops during the festival and throughout the year see www.londonclownfest.co.uk

London Clown Festival runs from 30 May - 13 July 2026 at Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE and Jacksons Lane, 269A Archway Road, N6 5AA. Ticket prices range from £14–£20 (plus booking fees). For more information visit www.londonclownfest.co.uk.