Cast
• Elisabeth Sladen – Sarah Jane Smith
• Tommy Knight – Luke Smith
• Daniel Anthony – Clyde Langer
• Anjli Mohindra – Rani Chandra
• Alexander Armstrong – Mr Smith
Bradley Walsh – Odd Bob / Elijah Spellman / The Pied Piper
• Mina Anwar – Gita Chandra
• Ace Bhatti – Haresh Chandra
• Floella Benjamin – Professor Rivers
• Yasmin Paige – Maria Jackson (voice)
• Jem Brownlee – David Finn
• Elijah Baker – Steve Wallace
• Aaron Showsanya – Tony Warner
• Huw Higginson – Mr Cunningham
• Jessica Mogridge – Young Sarah Jane
• Alan Ruscoe – Clown
• Sean Palmer – Clown

Plot Outline By Wikipedia

Luke Smith is struggling to adjust to life without Maria Jackson, she having moved to Washington, D.C. with her father. Meanwhile, the Chandras move into the Jacksons' old house on Bannerman Road and Sarah Jane Smith starts an investigation into disappearing children in the area. Sarah Jane makes Luke and Clyde promise her that they will not reveal her alien investigating secrets to the newcomers to Bannerman Road.

Clyde Langer and Luke meet new girl Rani Chandra at school. After Clyde sees a clown in school prior to the sudden disappearance of one of his friends, Rani reveals she is being stalked by a clown that no one else can see. With Clyde having got into trouble with the new Head teacher, Rani's father, Luke arranges to keep an eye on Rani in his place and goes round to her house to help her unpack. Sarah Jane and Clyde link the disappearances of the children to the Museum of the Circus, Clyde and two of the missing children having received tickets for it. Rani, who wants to become a journalist, begins her own investigation and makes the same connection to the Museum having found a ticket in a school book belonging to one of the missing children and having a ticket herself.

Sarah Jane and Clyde explore the Museum of the Circus and encounter Elijah Spellman. Soon they are joined by Rani and Luke and Spellman sets his robotic clowns on the group. Sarah Jane halts the clowns, as shown in the picture, with her sonic lipstick and Luke theorises that Spellman is an alien. As Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Rani attempt to escape the building, Spellman reveals himself to have been the legendary Pied Piper of Hamelin and now Odd Bob the Clown seeking to feed off their fear.

Sarah Jane and the rest escape through the back door. Then Sarah Jane tells Luke about why she's scared of clowns saying that the clown mannequin in her room came to life when she was young. The next morning, Rani looks out of her bedroom window and sees Odd Bob's balloon in her garden. When she gets to the school she tells Luke and Clyde, then a load of balloons fall down from the sky, all the school kids pick them up (apart from Luke, Clyde and Rani) and fall under the spell from Odd Bob, behaving much like the Pied Piper story.

Analysis by Leather_Tuscadero

There is nothing scarier than a clown, nothing!…well maybe a clown who force feeds me eggs. (I’m allergic to eggs)

I think this episode is the most uncomfortable amount of time I’ve ever spent with Sarah Jane, seriously! Clowns! Kids! Balloons! What in the hell were they thinking!
I’ve gotta admit though this was one of the awesomest episodes ever, despite being so damn scary, I mean the idea that the pied piper could have been something more sinister is totally believable, I always thought he was odd actually, and the idea that he turns into an evil clown and snatches kids is just excellent.
Bradley Walsh was great in this episode, so creepy! I’ve never really though of him as a good actor, I’ve seen him in soaps and stuff but in this he was just awesome as both Elijah and the clown, the way he could differentiate from the two different sets of scariness in the weird creepy Elijah to the super scary clown was just awesome, in fact I didn’t actually realise it was the same actor at first, he was that good!

I’m not utterly convinced with Rani yet, I’m still hurt by Maria’s departure though, I feel like the jilted ex going on the rebound! But I think she definitely has potential. I’m not sure about her family though yet, her dad seems like a bit of an ass, especially towards Clyde, although he is a headmaster so I guess I can excuse him for being a bit miserable, if I had a job that pointless I’d probably be miserable too, Rani’s mum is a bit of a puzzle yet, she’s a slight improvement on Chrissie I suppose since she doesn’t hate Sarah, but she does seem a bit ditzy, and why cant she get Sarah’s name right! It’s Sarah Jane!!! Hello!!! It aint that hard! I think that joke is getting a bit old now; didn’t we have enough of that with Chrissie?
It is a bit odd though that Sarah is so uptight about her name, I don’t remember any specific time when she was travelling with the Doctor that she was that adamant about her name, The Doctor always called just her Sarah, why is she so picky about it now, maybe Sarah is a name only The Doctor can call her!

This episode had some seriously creepy moments in it even for a kids programme, the bit with little Sarah Jane and that creepy clown puppet is something I’m sure everyone can identify with, haven’t we all been scared of a monster under the bed or seen a shadow of a tree and thought it looked like an arm trying to grab us, I though that bit was just awesome, And that bit where Odd Bob licked his fingers after touching Sarah, eww! That was spine tingly creepy! I loved Sarahs expression while he was doing that, it was excellent, disgusted and scared at the same time, awesome!

I’ve had this theory about kids TV since I was a young teenager, Kids programmes are not made for kids, they’re made for adults, sure kids watch them but they are made for adults, I have this theory because every now and then a kids programme will tap into something that is very adult, this episode was about fear, everyone has a fear, everyone has something that scares them and I know lots of people who are scared of clowns, I blame Stephen King for that to be honest, I think he’s solely responsible for messing up the minds of an entire generation, and whoever wrote this episode has clearly been reading too much of his work.

Awesome episode though, definitely one of the best, but I’d rather not see anymore clowns for a while! I’m really glad I didn’t see them filming this episode around Cardiff, if I’d seen clowns running around town handing kids red balloons I’d have freaked out, seriously!

Review by Brandon Tempany/Leather Tuscadero