Clare Bartholomew is a fully qualified doctor -clown doctor, that is -and has been administering her special paediatric care in Melbourne hospitals for 17 years. Based on the premise that laughter is the best medicine, clown doctors offer a dose of humour in situations that are generally not much fun. All professional performers, they are trained by The Humour Foundation to work in hospitals.
"It's a pretty specialised job," Bartholomew says. "I'm going into the private space of a child and family when they're feeling quite vulnerable so need to be sensitive. Some children Imay meet for five minutes only once and others I'll see multiple times, sometimes over a period of months or even years.
"It's about adding a tiny bit of light in what otherwise might be a bleak time." Bartholomew and Daniel Tobias are bringing their original children's show - Sunny Ray and the Magnificent Moon -to the Tauranga Arts Festival later this month and are looking forward to engaging with Kiwi audiences.
"We asked ourselves about the kind of show we wanted to make for kids," Bartholomew says, "and we answered 'one that adults could enjoy too' so there are two levels of humour - one for the littlies and one for the adults who bring them along."
Telling the story, including with some audience help, of what happens when Sunny Ray decides to stay up all night, the show features original songs with influences ranging from Elvis and Doris Day to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga.