In all my years of passionately loving circus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clown as exposed as what I experienced in Spencer Novich’s Chatter at The West End Electric. And I mean that in every sense of the word. Exposed in mind and soul. Exposed in baring his nerves, his fears, and his heartbreaks. And exposed in the raw human form (yes, his juggling balls do make an appearance – so best leave the kids at home).
Chatter isn’t a circus act, and it isn’t a play in the traditional sense either; it’s Spencer Novich opening a door he could have easily kept closed.
Chatter is Spencer Novich stripped right back, dealing head-on with the reality of life after being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. It’s not just a show about a clown – it’s about a man whose body and mind were knocked off their axis, and how that changed the way he lives and performs.
He bares everything: the fear, the humour, the chaos, the constant noise in his head. There’s even a moment where he recalls thinking he had cancer, and the strange relief when it wasn’t that – only to be hit with the sobering truth that ulcerative colitis would reshape his world in ways he couldn’t escape.
That tension, between relief and devastation, becomes the spine of the piece. How do you cope when your life tilts so dramatically? How do you keep performing when your own body won’t always play along? Novich doesn’t hand over neat answers; he just shows us the fight, and that raw honesty is what makes the show land so deeply.
This is the same man who performed over a thousand shows with Cirque du Soleil’s Kà, where everything is huge and perfectly timed, polished within an inch of its life. But at The West End Electric, in this small, almost claustrophobic space, there’s no hiding behind spectacle.
What you get is Spencer: a clown who can twist his face into a dozen expressions in a second, tripping over himself in one moment and then, almost without warning, speaking about the anxiety that’s lived with him since ulcerative colitis shook his world.
While his physical home may be on the other side of the globe, New York, to be exact, Spencer seems right at home at The West End Electric. He leans into theatrical tropes that have been a staple in Strut & Fret’s productions for years. Loud soundscapes and a montage of soundbites ripple through the theatre, acted out by Spencer, revealing intimate fragments of his life.
This Brisbane Festival show may be Chatter by name, but it is chatter in form too. Voices, interruptions, noise that never switches off. He uses sound, yes, but also his own voice: fragmented and spiralling. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s frightening. A few times, it was both at once. That’s the whole tension and the realism of the show. The world-famous, notoriously slapstick clown falls and gets back up – but this time, he shows you the pain behind the act.
What’s truly remarkable is that it never slips into self-pity, because that’s not who Spencer is, and it’s not what he’s looking for. He’s still a performer, and he knows how to make you laugh – but he doesn’t let you forget that the laughter is carrying something heavier.
There’s a moment where he’s wrestling with these invisible voices, spinning in circles, falling over himself, and it’s hilarious… until he stops. And in that silence, you feel the exhaustion of fighting your own head, day in and day out. It’s confronting.
By the end, the voices are still buzzing. They don’t magically vanish – and that’s kind of the point. What changes is the way he rolls with them, and the way we get to watch him do it.
Some moments he pushes back, some moments he caves, and then out of nowhere he’ll flip it all into a gag. It feels messy, unpredictable, but you can tell that’s the truth of it. Watching him claw through it in real time somehow makes you feel lighter walking out.
Chatter is funny, it’s awkward, and it’s raw. It bares all and tells us to stop pretending everything is fine all of the time. Because that’s not Spencer’s reality, nor is it the reality for many people. It’s about admitting when things aren’t fine and having the guts to step back into the light, blow up a balloon, and make the most of it.
Chatter (NYC) runs to 27 September at The West End Electric as part of 2025 Brisbane Festival. 125 Boundary Street West End Qld 4101.
Tickets: https://www.brisbanefestival.com.au/events/chatter
Website: https://strutnfret.com/shows/chatter/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/spencernovich/
Hero image photo credit: HanJie Chow
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