A 19-year-old filmmaker from Swansea is turning a childhood spent on the road into a big-screen debut — with a documentary exploring the hidden lives of clowns.
Pip Furlong, who grew up travelling across the UK and Europe with his father’s street performances, is set to premiere his film Where Do Clowns Go? in Swansea this weekend before taking it on a nationwide tour.
The project has been six months in the making — following five professional clowns across four countries, from the Arctic Circle in Norway to the French Pyrenees.
But for Pip, this isn’t just a film — it’s personal.
“I always knew our lives weren’t ‘normal’,” he said. “But it didn’t seem odd to me because that’s what I had always known.
“I rarely told anyone about it — it just felt like a secret, separate life.”
Life behind the curtain
Growing up around performance, Pip was no stranger to unusual settings — including the family’s mobile, solar-powered “Sol Cinema”, a tiny travelling cinema showing short films to audiences of just eight people.
While he loved performing, filmmaking quickly became his passion.
“I always viewed phones as mobile cameras,” he said. “I had no crew or actors, so I would write scripts, set up shots and play all the parts myself.”
That early experimentation laid the groundwork for his latest project — a documentary looking beyond the greasepaint.
Following the clowns home
The idea for the film came after watching a performance at Glastonbury.
“It wasn’t the shows that struck me — it was the audience’s view of the performers,” Pip explained.
“I realised I had a unique perspective. Most of these clowns have other lives after the show. I wanted to explore that — where their clown and their real self meet.”
With no budget, Pip funded the project himself — working multiple jobs to pay for travel and equipment.
He embedded himself fully in the lives of his subjects.
“We ate together, worked together and travelled together,” he said. “I just filmed everything — I wanted the reality of life offstage.”
Big moment in Swansea
The finished film — a 50-minute fly-on-the-wall documentary — will have its world premiere in Swansea on March 21 before heading out on a UK tour including Cardiff, Bristol, London and beyond.
Pip, who is now studying Film and Television at university in Bristol, is already looking to expand the tour further.
And for a young filmmaker who started out making videos alone with costumes from his dad’s shows, it marks a huge step forward.
It would be like being at the dressing room window, witnessing the vulnerabilities and strengths of the people whose job it is to train. A magnificent opportunity to rethink human sensitivity. What situations must be overcome to ensure the audience has a pleasant time? I’m excited to watch it!