Press Quotes.
"Chris Lynam is a brilliantly bizarre antidote to today's truculent society"
New York Times.
"....Our most dangerous comic"
The Independent.
"mahout of the bizarre buffoon extraordinaire to wit"
The Times.
"Surreal unhinged quality which makes for comic greatness"
The Guardian.
KING OF CLOWNS
Very few members of the comedy world are worthy of the title 'genius'; Chris
Lynam isn't one of them but he comes damn close.
Laughing Matters meets the man with fire-proof buttocks If you have to be
famous for one thing & one thing alone then Chris Lynam has probably
cornered the market with the most wacko stunt anyone would dream of
performing & get paid for it..................
For a long time Chris Lynam has been one of the better kept secrets on the
circuit not know for its ability to keep 'schtum'. A man of outrageous
natural comic talent, Lynam has had to sit back and watch his contemporaries
- the comic strippers and the rest - grab all the headlines and the glory
while he has plied his trade on the streets and smaller clubs. The signs are
there that Chris Lynam is about to become a, er .... big noise.
Lynams dangerous style of comedy was born just over 25 years ago when he
was a schoolboy in Zimbabwe, a country he still visits regularly to apply
the finishing touches to a five story log cabin he is building. His
earliest apprenticeship began at the age of fourteen when he spent the
summer working in a Luna Park picking up the rudiments of being a clown
There he teamed up with a group of RAF men on their annual holiday, who
guided him through the first steps of public performance. From that point on
he was hooked but it wasn't until he was twenty three that he finally
committed himself to a life in show business with the words, "sod it! I want
to be a clown"
His first gig was also his very worst, playing to three kids on the Kings
road. It was so tacky and embarrassing. He smiles ruefully at the memory.
Right now he's playing to rather larger audiences and his best experience
came at last years Hysteria benefit at Sadlers Wells. When you get a whoosh
from 2,000 people, you really feel it.
Clowning Lynam style is rather different from the circus variety and he
certainly sticks out from the ever-increasing ranks of conventional
stand-ups who merely fling words at their audience. Lynam flings so much
more at his crowd, from chocolate and ice-cubes to confetti and even his
whole body when he's doing his impression of some pigeon poo landing on a
victim. His style emanates from the streets where he has spent so much time
touring the world on a shoestring and perfecting his art. The result is a
general air of barely controlled madness that characterizes his shows. But
it is only an impression, because make no mistake, everything Lynam does is
carefully staged.
In contrast to his manic persona on stage, when he's off duty Lynam is a quiet,
not particularly talkative man who reserves his copious energy and the
extrovert side of his nature for performance.
Nevertheless, when you are in conversation with him there is always the
feeling that a fire rages furiously just below the surface, temporarily
extinguished only when given the chance to burn brightly in front of large
numbers of people.
Up until very recently television producers have resisted his dangerous
brand of entertainment - Channel four in particular - but they have finally
latched on to the Lynam phenomenon and he is now in constant demand. He has
recorded his own 45 minute special for BSB and it would appear that an
entire series of his own is a possibility for the New Year. Even though
things are going spectacularly well for him, and not before time, Lynam
still retains an air of caution. You see I'm virtually unknown outside of
London. That situation is about to change.
Popcorn History
Multi-operatic diva Kate McKenzie and the infamous Chris Lynam have devised
The Popcorn Club - an iconoclastic two-hour spectacular which unravels more
loose ends than it can hope to tie up! Blurring the fine line between dream
and wakefulness, the cast lay bare their hopes and fears ia a surreal revue
drawing judiciously upon the vagaries of popular culture. Chris turns
backstage traumas frontstage, bickering and brawling before soaring high
above the crowd on gossamer wings.
With an exquisite grasp of the grotesque, Chris Lynam has been feverishly subverting the traditions of the stand-up for more than fifteen years. His
reputation for unpredictable comic mayhem has propelled him to the four
corners of the globe, and viewers here and throughout Europe have been
aghast and agog at his televised antics.
Kate McKenize is an accomplished performer in her own right, with a string
of stage and screen credits to her name including The Singing detective,
Lennie Henry's Chef and Ken campbell's beauty And The Beast.
Chris Lynam is renowned for many things, but mainly for bringing his own
brand of crazed humour to bear on unsuspecting audiences. His comedy is both
dangerous and exciting, stretching variety to it's limits.
Any one show may include pyrotechnics, acrobats, attacks upon the audience,
outlandish operatic and orchestral overtures, flying sousaphones and
anything else which may spring to Mr Lynam's unnecessarily large and vivid
imagination.
Chris Lynam has worked as an uncategorisable solo comedian for 35 years
which have earned him a reputation for unpredictable hilarity and mayhem. he
has toured his solo show to New York, Milan, Genoa, Edinburgh, Germany,
Canada, Australia, Indonesia Hong Kong and Zimbabwe.