Ada Player is a BAFTA-nominated actor, director and writer from Derbyshire with training from the renowned clowning school L’Ecole Philippe Gaulier. Screen Editor Sofia Jones chats to Ada about clowning, her Channel 4 comedy Peaked and her short film Spare Part.
Some films wash over you leaving no lasting impression; others linger long after you’ve finished watching them. Ada Player’s Spare Part was the latter for me. It was shown at Short Stack, a short film festival at Broadway Cinema, which Derbyshire native Ada was introduced to as a teenager when she completed Broadway Cinema’s BFI course. It’s another reminder of the importance of short film festivals for new and emerging filmmakers.
Spare Part began as a dramatic monologue - a small element of a live comedy show called The Origin of Love which Ada and her creative partner Bron Waugh are taking to Edinburgh Fringe this year. The concept grew from there, Ada explains: “we wanted to write about someone who always puts themselves second in a relationship. The image of a fly-on-the-wall girlfriend watching her boyfriend play football all day felt like a silly, but a very sad, image.”
This image is at the heart of the fully-fledged Spare Part that I saw at Short Stack. It was an amusing portrayal of a one-sided relationship - exaggerating to full effect the role Ada describes as “hanger-onner.” Whether we like to admit it or not, the “hanger-onner” is a role we all play at some stage in our lives, so to see it personified in Ada’s character exemplified the holy trinity of comedic qualities: funny, uncomfortable, and depressing all at once.
The film’s music and visuals were both peculiar and striking - Ada summarises it best: “I monologue to camera accompanied by whimsical xylophone,” creating a “weird mix of naturalistic monologue with surreal things happening in the background.”
In one scene, Ada’s character speaks directly to the camera about the boyfriend she’s pining after while he does a synchronized stretch with his football team in the background. Director of Photography for Spare Part, Max Brill drew inspiration from sources like Swedish director Roy Andersson, whose quirky and unsettling visuals are echoed here.
The dreamlike, strange and funny Spare Part was refreshing, and after Short Stack was over I was keen to find out more about Ada’s work.
Ada studied at L’Ecole Philippe Gaulier, the renowned school for clowning. She was encouraged to attend by a friend’s dad who saw her perform in a local play: “He probably noticed I was gurning at the audience in between lines to try and get laughs,” Ada says.
At clown school, our teacher was this old man who would bang on a little drum and say ‘You’re s**t’ when we didn’t make the audience laugh. It sounds harsh but it is a great way of generating material
She tells me that clowning is still the starting point for all of her creative work: “the ideas for Spare Part began from improvisation, trying out different voices and characters to see what is the funniest.”
Ada explains: “At clown school, our teacher was this old man who would bang on a little drum and say ‘You’re s**t’ when we didn’t make the audience laugh. It sounds harsh but it is a great way of generating material.” There was a method to this madness and it helped to cultivate a key element in clowning, failure. “It is all about failure, a funny clown bounces right back after a fall.”
Another teaching in clowning is complicité, which Ada describes as “a togetherness on stage.” I asked if this term could be applied to the dynamic between her and her creative partner Bron Waugh: “I always want to make Bron laugh and vice versa.” Their process is a flexible one, she explains: “Bron and I have lots of different ‘ways in’ to writing. The ‘idea or concept’ doesn’t always come first. Often it’s an improvised moment, a character, or even a piece of music that we then try to build a world around.”
One of their recent collaborations was aired on Channel 4 and has been nominated for a BAFTA - it’s called Peaked and it’s set in a fictional Derbyshire town. Peaked is a shift away from the monologue and “whimsical xylophone” of Spare Part to a new form, the ‘blap’, a Channel 4 term for comedy shorts that are piloted and often go on to become full shows.
Clowning is a starting point for all of my creative work! Both the ideas for Spare Part and Peaked began from improvisation, trying out different voices and characters to see what is the funniest
“The initial idea came just after Bron and I had moved back home during Covid. It is about two best friends who have ‘peaked’ too soon.” The location is inspired by Ada’s hometown, Wirksworth which is, Ada summarises, an “ex-quarrying town turned arts community.”
“In Peaked, the young characters call themselves artists, but mainly so they can boast about it over a pint,” she explains. “Wirksworth has become this place that people move to, from all over the country, with locals who have lived here for generations and others who have just arrived. We wanted to play with this community change with new-boy George, coming to town and causing chaos with his bongos.”
The legendary Channel 4 comedy Peep Show was an influence on the short. “We took a lot from it structurally because it’s about two losers who chase after women, and we wanted Peaked to have a similar sort of driving force, with two girls chasing after a boy.” Yet, tonally Ada says that Peaked is very different: “the characters are a lot more naïve and innocent, I think despite their selfishness, we root for them. They want to connect with each other but there is so much pretension getting in the way.”
The special quality of Ada’s work is its ability to make absurd those insecurities we all have through her exaggerated characters. It means we don’t just laugh at the characters but also ourselves. “Clowning is all about discovering your ‘inner idiot’,” Ada says. There seems to be a real joy in clowning around, one that hears failure as the bang of a little drum - signalling that it’s time to get up and do something even sillier.
Spare Part will be released on 2 June 2025 on independent film website directorsnotes.com. Peaked is available to watch on Channel 4. The Origin of Love by Ada Player and Bron Waugh will feature at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025.
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