The Day of the Clown (TV story)

Day of the Clown was the second story of the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. This story introduced Rani Chandra as a new main character.

Synopsis
The new girl on Bannerman Road, Rani Chandra, is being haunted by a sinister clown -- does it have anything to do with the local children that have gone missing? When Clyde's friend Dave disappears, the trail leads them to a strange circus museum- and the legend of the Pied Piper.

Part 1
A new family is moving into number 36 Bannerman Road, the house formerly occupied by Alan and Maria Jackson. Luke Smith still misses Maria, even though she's keeping in touch by e-mail. His mum Sarah Jane sympathises, and reminds him that Maria will visit England before too long; she'll be at her mother's wedding. But, as Luke notes, it's not the same. There's a new girl at Park Vale School, the boys' comprehensive: clever and inquisitive Rani, who wants to be a journalist. Clyde is smitten--even forgetting his odd sightings of clowns, always just out of the corner of his eye--until he notices that there's also a new head at the school: humourless Mr Chandra, who is determined to improve the students' scores and put an end to the recent rash of child disappearances... and who is not impressed with Clyde, the class clown. Clyde doesn't make it to lunch before receiving a summons to the new head's office.

While he is waiting by Mr Chandra's office, Clyde has another clown sighting. He tries to laugh it off, but he is shaken when his friend Dave ducks into a small art closet for supplies... and doesn't come out. Moreover, the art closet is empty; Dave has vanished into thin air.

Sarah Jane brings the new family some tea and biscuits, in the guise of a welcoming gesture, but in reality, when Gita Chandra's back is turned, she preforms a scan, due to Clyde's earlier remark, to check that no alien "residue" remains from the Jacksons' previous inhabitancy. Only Gita Chandra is there--her husband and daughter are at school, she explains--so the two women share tea, and Gita describes her family. She is thrilled to learn that Sarah Jane is an investigative journalist, as her daughter Rani wants to become one herself.

Clyde and Luke are walking home from school when Clyde sees another clown. Though Luke doesn't see anything, the boys give chase; they encounter only Rani, who has also been seeing clowns. Rani is quick to wonder if there is an extraordinary or supernatural explanation behind the disappearances, and the three teens are deep in discussion when they reach Bannerman Road... and discover that Rani's dad is Mr Chandra. He is not pleased to see his daughter walking home with Clyde, who he has pegged as a troublemaker, though he is delighted that she has also made friends with Luke, one of Park Vale's most gifted students.

Luke goes to help Rani unpack. In Rani's room, the two continue their discussion of the missing children. The mention of clowns jogs Rani's memory: suddenly, she remembers taking a ticket to see a circus museum from a man outside the Tube. Rani quickly decides to investigate, and Luke feels he has no choice but to follow.

Clyde and Sarah Jane have independently discovered the same thing: all the missing children had received tickets to the same circus museum, and only children with tickets were seeing the clowns. They elect to visit the clown museum as well.

Spellman's Magical Museum of the Circus is run by strange Elijah Spellman, who shows them around and leads them to a room filled with clown mannequins. Clyde spots a picture on the wall: an old watercolour painting of a man wearing red, blue, and yellow--just like the mysterious ghost clowns he'd been seeing. Sarah Jane explains that the figure depicted is the Pied Piper, a legendary figure out of European folklore who was purported to steal children.

Elijah Spellman agrees: he reveals that he is the Pied Piper and the mysterious clown, and he has come for more children. Nor will he tolerate discovery--with a word, he vanishes, and the clown mannequins come to life and threaten Sarah Jane and Clyde.

They run to the entrance, where they meet Luke and Rani, and discover that--while Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick is effective against the clown mannequins--the Pied Piper has trapped them in the building...

Part 2
Spellman continues to frighten Sarah Jane Smith by revealing insights on her childhood whilst Clyde, Luke and Rani attempt to escape from the museum. Luke and Clyde manage to get outside whilst Sarah Jane remains terrified inside the circus. Rani's phone starts to ring and she is forced with a dilemma as Mum appears on the screen. While the phone rings, Spellman freezes. After a few seconds, she decides to decline the call and run out of the circus. Sarah Jane follows and the crew get inside Sarah Jane's car to drive back to Bannerman Road.

Once there, Sarah Jane gives Rani a choice of living across the road and not interfering with Sarah Jane's life or alternatively going with Sarah Jane and experiencing a whole new world of adventure. Rani chooses to join Sarah Jane and says she will explain to her mum that she is completing some work experience with Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane, Rani, Luke and Clyde go into Sarah Jane's house, where Rani is amazed by the alien gadgets and gizmos in Sarah Jane's attic, particularly alien supercomputer Mr Smith. The new team quickly determines that the history of the Pied Piper is traceable to a meteorite that fell to Earth in 1283. The extrasolar meteorite originated from the Jeggorabax Cluster, a region of space known to house entities that fed off of emotions. To confirm this, Mr Smith says, he will need a sample of the meteorite. Fortunately, it is on loan from the University of Munich to the Pharos Institute.

Back at Sarah Jane's home, Luke confronts Sarah Jane about her apparent fear of clowns. Why should his mum, who has seen some of the strangest things in the universe, be frightened of clowns? Sarah Jane explains that she was frightened of a clown marionette owned by her Aunt Lavinia, when she was a child; a trauma intensified because it was one of the few times she missed having parents she could call on for comfort.

Sarah Jane then visits the Pharos Institute and borrows a piece of meteorite to give back to Mr.Smith but whilst she is there, Spellman appears and tells Sarah Jane that families will perish at the deaths of a nation of children.

Meanwhile, at Park Vale School, a host of red balloons fall from the sky. As the children grab them, they seem to lose free will, and mindlessly walk out of school towards Spellman's museum. Sarah Jane remembers how when Rani's phone range earlier made Spellman freeze. She gets Mr Smith to ring all the childrens' mobile numbers--breaking the spell--but Spellman kidnaps Luke and imprisons him in the hall of mirrors. Currently he is sleeping with the other missing children who Odd Bob has caught.

Sarah Jane demands her child back, but Spellman correctly deduces that she is still afraid of him, and reveals that he has been responsible for her lifelong fear of clowns. She and Spellman face off, unaware that Rani and Clyde have entered the building secretly.

Clyde faces Spellman, unafraid, and begins to tell jokes. The humour loosens the grip that fear has on Sarah Jane, which in turn weakens Spellman--who feeds on fear. Spellman weakens to the extents that Sarah Jane can force him back into the fragment of the meteorite, which she puts into an alien box which nothing can escape from.

Rani is a little shaken by her odd experiences, but vows to help Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde in their adventures.

Cast

 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Luke Smith - Tommy Knight
 * Clyde Langer - Daniel Anthony
 * Rani Chandra - Anjli Mohindra
 * Gita Chandra - Mina Anwar
 * Haresh Chandra - Ace Bhatti
 * The Pied Piper / Elijah Spellman / Odd Bob the Clown - Bradley Walsh
 * Dave Finn - Jem Brownlee
 * Tony Warner - Aaron Shosanya
 * Mr Cunningham - Huw Higginson
 * Steve Wallace - Elijah Baker
 * Professor Rivers - Floella Benjamin
 * Young Sarah Jane - Jessica Mogridge
 * Maria Jackson - Yasmin Paige
 * Clowns - Alan Ruscoe and Sean Palmer
 * Clara the Clown - Carmen Silvera (uncredited, stock image)

Foods and Beverages

 * Sarah Jane Smith and Gita Chandra share tea and biscuits.

Story notes

 * Luke claims that they have saved the world 12 times. If the events of SJAA: The Thirteenth Stone, The Glittering Storm and DW: Journey's End are counted, this leaves only 10 times, alluding to two more off-screen adventures.
 * One of the Clowns shown on Sarah Jane's laptop is Clara the Clown, a Clown that appeared in DW: The Celestial Toymaker.
 * The telekinetic plastic-clowns resemble Autons.

Ratings

 * Episode 1 - 514,000 (CBBC)
 * 0.5 million (BBC 1)
 * Episode 2 - 443,000 (CBBC)
 * 0.7 million (BBC 1)

Myths and Rumours

 * The introduction of Rani sparked fan-forum speculation as to whether there is any connection between her and The Rani, the recurring villain of the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras. Other than having the same name, no connection has as yet been in evidence.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * The Chandra's house has changed from being 12 Bannerman Road (SJA: Invasion of the Bane) to 36 Bannerman Road.

Continuity

 * Mr Chandra refers to Greg Blakeman, the previous head teacher who was killed by the Slitheen and used as a skin suit for their leader (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen) but claims that Blakeman "mysteriously vanished."
 * Also, when he comes in, Mr Chandra shuts the rowdy students up by shouting "This is a classroom, not the home end of Stamford Bridge!" which sounds rather like the many "I'm a doctor, not a..." lines in Star Trek
 * Sarah Jane, who finds clowns creepy, tangles with sinister clowns in this story. Fellow companion Ace was also frightened of clowns, but conquered her fears when she encountered sinister clowns at the Psychic Circus on Segonax. (DW: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy).
 * Menacing clowns have also appeared in DW: The Celestial Toymaker and The Deadly Assassin. There were also clowns among the Night Travellers in TW: From Out of the Rain.
 * The Nestene Consciousness also uses animated mannequins as attack drones. (DW: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons, Rose)
 * On the noticeboard on the classroom there is a paper with the name Rhys Williams written on it. Probably a coincidence; possibly a production in-joke.
 * On Sarah Jane's staircase there are several newspaper cuttings, which appear to have been written by Sarah Jane. One of them is about the events of DW: School Reunion.
 * The First Doctor, John and Gillian encountered the Pied Piper in TVC: "Challenge of the Piper". They were present for the story told about him near the end of episode 1, and uncovered him as a practitioner of science, rather than of hypnotic flute playing.

Novelisation

 * Main article: The Day of the Clown (novelisation).

A novelisation was released by Penguin Character Books on 5th November 2008. It is to date the last Series 2 story to be so adapted.

Home video releases
This story, along with the rest of Series 2, was released on DVD on the 9th November 2009 (UK) and 10th November 2009 (North America).