Gay / Australian / Formerly Corporate
Brand Strategist → Comedian
Based in Melbourne
“Clinton notices the things everyone has silently agreed to ignore. And refuses to let them go.”
Clinton Barnes is an Australian stand-up comedian based in Melbourne, currently performing across the city and developing his debut solo show.
Prior to pivoting to comedy, Clinton spent over a decade as a brand strategist working with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, TikTok, Airbus, and Smirnoff. He has since applied this same rigorous analytical framework to bidets, dog ownership, and why women and gay men feel differently about dick.
His comedy is observational, intelligent, and exactly as gay as it needs to be. He notices things other people have agreed to walk past, and makes the entirely reasonable case that we should all have been more alarmed. His debut solo show, No, I'm Not Overthinking It, premieres at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2026, Raging Bull, 1.30pm, Aug 24-30, following a Melbourne preview season.
The gap between how much we think and how well we live. The social contracts we’ve all silently signed. The extraordinary absurdity of the ordinary.
Founder, The Connected Agency. Brand counsel to Fortune 500 companies. Nine years in the United States, which gives him a lot of material.
Clinton Barnes has been paying attention. To bidets. To people pretending to have fun. To people insisting you love their bad decision to get a pet. A show about noticing the things everyone agrees to ignore, and refusing to let them go.
Australian. Formerly corporate. Currently this.
Loved it. Left it. Has opinions about it. Specifically about consciousness, tech bros, and the social utility of the cigarette-as-pretext.
He’s working on it. The incident was, in retrospect, entirely foreseeable. He maintains he read the room as best he could.
Bidet. Douche nozzle. Standard plumbing. An intersection of junctions requiring two plumbers and one very uncomfortable conversation.
Clinton is represented by himself, which is a situation he is actively working to resolve. In the meantime, please get in touch directly. He responds promptly, having thought about what he will say for quite some time beforehand.
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