 Grimaldi became " easily the most popular English entertainer of his day " . The Victoria and Albert Museum and the actor Simon Callow have both concluded that no other Clown achieved Grimaldi 's level of fame . Richard Findlater , author of a 1955 Grimaldi biography , commented : " Here is Joey the Clown , the first of 10 @,@ 000 Joeys who took their name from him ; here is the genius of English fun , in the holiday splendour of his reign at Sadler 's Wells and Covent Garden ... during his lifetime [ Grimaldi ] was generally acclaimed as the funniest and best @-@ loved man in the British theatre . " A later biographer , Andrew McConnell Stott , wrote that " Joey had been the first great experiment in comic persona , and by shifting the emphasis of clowning from tricks and pratfalls to characterisation , satire and a full sense of personhood , he had established himself as the spiritual father of all those later comedians whose humour stems first and foremost from a strong sense of identity . " 
