HistoryPoints News

Dec 31, 2023

When soldiers heckled clowns


Will Catlin's famous pierrot clowns were a big attraction on Colwyn Bay seafront, but one performance in 1915 was interrupted by locally-billeted soldiers from South Wales who asked why the performers hadn't joined the army. Around 7,000 soldiers and civilians massed there the next ...

evening, but the feared riot didn't break out because an army officer had ordered Will to cancel that night's show. For more about the pierrots, use your smartphone to scan the new HistoryPoints QR codes on the sea wall near the Parisella ice cream outlet - opposite where the clowns' Arcadia theatre used the railway embankment for tiered seating. Or click here