The master clown helped generations of performers be more alive in the moment – and not take themselves too seriously. His teachings were for life as well as the stage• Philippe Gaulier, clown guru and mentor to theatre and comedy greats, dies aged 82When I was starting out as a theatre-maker, back in the last millennium, there were three ways (or so we thought) you could educate yourself in the trade. If you wanted to be taken seriously and say a lot of words, drama school in the UK was your bag. If you wanted to make theatre with your body, École Jacques Lecoq in Paris beckoned. And if you wanted to perform with your whole heart, shared innocence and transcendent idiocy, you went to École Philippe Gaulier. That’s what my pal Alex Murdoch did, and she returned with a suite of his teachings (about clowning and so much more than clowning) that the two of us made theatre with for the next 17 years.Few knew back then, although the process was already under way, that Gaulier – who has died...