Clown Riot by Christo Graham

"No foolin’ — there really was a clown riot (or two). In Toronto. In 1855. That horrifying and hilarious mayhem inspires CLOWN RIOT, the 10th album by Toronto musician, actor, and graphic designer Christo Graham. The wonderful album on the We Are Busy Bodies imprint sets the stage for CLOWN RIOT to become an on-stage Canadian music theatre classic. For now, we have a 2025 gem of an album created by maestros Graham and Tyrone Savage. The Canadian theatre collaborators have found rock opera gold in that bawdy and tawdry slice of Toronto Victoriana. The music and lyrics are worth a riot on their own. The National Centre for New Musicals in Hamilton accepted CLOWN RIOT as one of five pieces for their inaugural year, developing the project based on the well-documented event: American clowns from a travelling circus engage in a brothel brawl with the bawdy house’s regular clientele, a company of volunteer firefighters. Clowns win Round One. Fired-up firefighters then start a revenge riot at the circus. Their Orange Order allies in the Toronto police do nothing to stop the ensuing clowns vs. firefighters chaos. You should look it up. But first — listen to the album it inspired on repeat and repeat to infinity. Graham and Savage shape and lift the album’s arc and the narrative by placing a true-life Toronto tragic hero at its heart..."

- James Stewart Reaney
Retired Music Journalist & President: The London and Middlesex Historical Society

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