Natasha Sutton Williams unpacks taboos in a triptych of unexpected tales

In the rollercoaster ride of physical theatre, comedy and performance art that is Clown Sex, Natasha Sutton Williams bounces between hilarity and tragedy as Gary Strange; a cheery inhabitant of the London sewers who is hungry for human connection and who retells a selection of shocking and deeply funny tales he's gathered as he eavesdrops on his neighbours' carnal desires.

We sat down with Natasha to hear more about the message of Clown Sex, where the inspiration came from and what Gary Strange is looking for on Tinder...

Are clowns sexy, not scary? It's estimated that 1 in 10 adults suffer from coulrophobia...?

What about the nine other adults? Sounds like they think clowns are pretty intriguing, some might even go so far as to say scintillating.

Look, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people are turned on by what other people think is unsavoury. Some people are turned on by what scares them. People fear the unknown, and that can link to clowns because they don't know what they're going to do next. Are they going to make a lovely balloon animal for you, then as you reach for it, they pop it and dash your balloon animal dreams? Are they going to spray water in your face? Are they crying real tears that smudge their painted-on smile or is it all for show? We may never know.

Ultimately every one of us has different sexual preferences. The message of Clown Sex is 'unleash your desires'. Be free. As long as it's consensual, it's all good.

Where do the stories within Clown Sex come from? Are they true, are they water cooler rumours, or plucked from your wild imagination?

Excellent question. The show is split into three stories: Dead Lucy, Cat Cunnilingus and Clown Sex.

I lived with the real Dead Lucy in a flat share when I first moved to London. In the flat there was a guy called Wildman (no joke, that was his second name) and I wrote about him in my first full length play I Am Not Sick at the Pleasance. I later found out in a big argument that Dead Lucy and Wildman were having a weird fling, but it all ended in tears. Army Boi also lived in the flat, but I never wrote about him because he was the dullest of the lot. Basically, I took some elements of Dead Lucy's real life and embellished them for Dead Lucy's monologue.

Cat Cunnilingus I shit you not, is 100% a true story. It was totally bizarre, and the piece is basically verbatim. I was working on a reception desk in a literary organisation at the time. A lady came in who had a big job interview for the role of CEO at an international charity that day and needed to charge her phone but forgot her charger. While we were waiting for her battery, she blurted out that she had had sex with a cat. Consensual sex, you understand? Then she went down the rabbit hole (or rather cat hole) and revealed every last detail to me. It was one of the strangest encounters I've ever had. Great material though.

For Clown Sex, around ten years ago I was commissioned by a youth theatre to adapt a show that used the metaphor of clowns for Eastern European trafficked sex workers. It was a bizarre proposition, but what sparked my interest was the idea of clown sex itself. Who would want to have sex with a clown? How would you seek it out? What would clown sex look and feel like? That's when my imagination took flight and Gary Strange was born.

What would Gary Strange's Tinder bio be?

Gary knows people have no attention span, so he hasn't written much. Just the pithy sentence, 'Unashamed pleasure seeker and Jaffa Cake lover'. Some Tinder users have got confused as to whether he makes love to Jaffa Cakes, but he likes to keep it vague.

Gary's pictures are a curation of him in uniforms for the odd jobs he's done over the years: working as a rigger in a circus, working on the oil rigs on Siberian ships, working in a Turkish barber's cutting celebrities' hair (you didn't think Boris came up with that haircut himself did you?), and that brief period when Gary was a fatberg flusher.

Do you have any pre or post show rituals?

Before the show I pray to the Jesus for strength. During the show I pray to the Jesus for strength. After the show, well, you know the drill.

If Clown Sex was a movie, what would the tagline be?

Clown Sex: Spank that Monkey.