"You want a fucking balloon? I'LL GIVE YOU A FUCKING BALLOON!"

Daisy Asquith's hour-long documentary film 'Clowns', shown tonight on BBC2, may have gone a little too obviously down the "tears of a clown" route beloved of those who dramatise the troubled private lives of publically successful comedians - focusing on one (Mr Pumpkin) forced to watch as his beloved mother succumbed to Alzheimer's, and another (Potty the Pirate) who was a Peter Pan type figure who found it easier to relate to children and puppets than to his nominal girlfriend (who understandably found his propensity to make "pirate noises at very inappropriate places" rather strange) - but it was rescued and dominated by the third main figure, Tommy Tickle.

The living, breathing embodiment of Krusty, the embittered, misanthropic and gravel-throated Tickle had fallen into clowning through a simple need to put food on the table. Short of temper and patience, he spent his screen time drinking, smoking and swearing and had a nice line in sharp wit - there can't be many children's entertainers incorporating material about Robert Mugabe into their routines...

That said, magician The Great Velcro wasn't far behind - disgraced for snapping and hitting an irritating kid, he was reduced to playing to the nearly-dead in old people's homes but said he was still available for parties on request, if parents wanted "a particularly violent magician"...

(The full film's available on iPlayer for the time being, but if you missed it and want a quick preview, here's the trailer.)