That's the essence of the story of this film, that to be a true clown you need to be born with "funny bones", it's not something you can simply have trained into you. Lee Evans plays a semi-tragic character, a young man with a disturbed past, but he has the knack of being able to naturally make people laugh. By contrast Oliver Platt's character yearns to be a great comedian like his father (played by Jerry Lewis), but the one time he tries his hand at a stand-up routine at a glitzy show in Las Vegas, he bombs. To flee the humiliation, and to try and learn what it is to be a great comedian, he goes to Blackpool. By studying all the small-time variety acts there he intends to find his "funny bones".
This is an engagingly surreal British film. I've never seen Blackpool shown in such a delightfully quirky way before, it almost at times feels like it should be in some peculiar part of Mid-West America. It's also a wonderful tribute to the scores of unknown entertainers who just simply keep enduring against all the odds, even when living with great hardship. The two aged clowns who make a living (if you can call it that) by putting in guest appearances on the Ghost Train is simply downright bizarre! There is a quite unnecessary sub-plot about some crooks (headed by Oliver Reed, putting in a short, and wierd, appearance). Lee Evans does his usual energetic performance. His frantic pirate radio sketch is one of the highlights of the film, as is the finale at Blackpool Tower Ballroom. The best part for me though was Platt auditioning each of the entertainers to try and get ideas. That was very funny indeed!