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This paper explains the nature of an original intervention practice the author conducted with several colleagues for many years with children being treated for cancer in the pediatric unit of a large hospital. This practice involves clowns who come once a week for the children, but also the families and the staff in order to decrease the pain. Based on several examples, the author shows how their work is based on what they see, hear, and feel from the state of the child, his openness to playing, and the improvised show. The children’s experience is “theatricalized” in the clown universe in the form of a metaphor by a transposition in a symbolic mode and through the playful diversion of their medicalized world. Through their intervention, clowns show a different appreciation of the children than the care staff. They help them tolerate hospital life thanks to these moments of lightness and relief by the imaginary.