Interviews

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Sisters

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Sisters, made up of Christy White-Spunner and Mark Jones, are a sketch duo who are bringing their debut show, White Noise, to this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Sisters will be performing at the Pleasance Courtyard throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

The pad thai in Assembly gardens.

2) What is your first Edinburgh show about?

Our show is called ‘White Noise’ and it’s about our three favourite things: Comedy, the internet and friendship. It features us desperately trying to find an online audience by Facetiming complete strangers in between sketches.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

Yeah complete bloody nutters. Also our parents.

4) What would be your worst Edinburgh accommodation nightmare?

Our worst Edinburgh accommodation nightmare would probably be an evil terraced house chasing us down the royal mile but we can’t run properly and whenever we try to cry out for help our voices don’t work.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

Sadiq Kahn coming to see our show. He didn’t put any money in the bucket.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

The Wrestling! Partly because that’s the only show we’ve actually booked so far.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

This is our debut show so we really just want to put ourselves on the map and for people to leave having really enjoyed it. Also a 6 figure movie deal.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

Probably our theory that the world is going to end the day after.

BOOK TICKETS FOR SISTERS: WHITE NOISE, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Simon Munnery

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Simon Munnery is always a stand out surrealist performer at the Edinburgh Fringe and this year looks set to be no different. Munnery is performing his latest show Renegade Plumber at The Stand throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

Doing a show for a month; it’s such a buzz.

2) What was your first Edinburgh show about?

It was a revue entitled ‘Jane Austen: Astronaut?’ I did two 5 minute stand-up spots and appeared in a couple of sketches.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

There’s much variety; of age, gender, ethnicity, but so far, touch wood, they seem to be lovely people in the main. There are occasional exceptions; a few years ago there was a group in (at 3.30pm) who were unshutupably drunk. “We’ve been to The Whisky Society” they informed me by way of explanation.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

The first time was the worst; an entire theatre company shared a tiny flat. We slept in tightly packed rows on the living room floor, and people would inevitably step on you on the way to the toilet.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

Stealing the Perrier award and being run to ground like a fox.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

N.o.n.c.e. No idea what it’s about – although I can guess – but I’ve promised to attend. It’s good to see a show knowing as little as possible about it, so that it may surprise you and perhaps delight.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

Enough money to feed the bairns, a show I can tour, and two or three really good conversations.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

My impending death perhaps? But then again, maybe in a sense they’ve all been about that.

BOOK TICKETS FOR SIMON MUNNERY: RENEGADE PLUMBER, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Phil Ellis

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Phil Ellis Has Been on Ice sees the comic re-awaken before his audience, having been cryogenically frozen since 2014. Ellis’ comedy game show Funz and Gamez is also returning to the Fringe this year, aimed at kids but enjoyed by adults too. Funz and Gamez will be at Just the Tonic at The Community Project and Phil Ellis Has Been on Ice will be at Just the Tonic at The Mash House throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

Apart from my increased heart rate when I check my bank balance? Probably just getting to perform an hour of something you’ve worked hard on all year and believe in each day. Getting to see friends and colleagues that you don’t get a chance to hang out with most of the rest of the year and reloading mumbles.com every 10 seconds to see if they gave you a good review or not.

2) What was your first Edinburgh show about?

My first Edinburgh show was in 2013 and it was called “Unplanned Orphan”. It was about me being told at the age of 30 that I had been adopted. The conceit was a ruse and played 100% straight in pre-Edinburgh interviews and Q&A’s. The actual show was about an idiot who was trying to win the main award by lying and attempting to do a moving and introspective Edinburgh show. The show fell apart within the first few minutes with the wrong slide show being uploaded, lights cutting out, begging for cash, a fire alarm going off and causing us to evacuate the venue and me getting my show times confused so when I’m delivering my final moving monologue a man dressed as a bear would interrupt and start “The Bear Show”, which was the next one in my venue. I had flyers made and distributed for an hour a day for the bear show, which didn’t exist. It was a lot of fun and cost me a bloody fortune.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

Idiots and the sad.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

I’ve always been quite lucky but once my housemate threw a large piece of ham out of the kitchen window and nearly killed a cat. True story, it was Carl Hutchinson. Prior to that, he’d been told off by the neighbour downstairs for decanting unwanted noodles out of the same window into the communal garden. He thinks he lives in Dickensian London the poor sod.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

Going up in 2014 with Funz and Gamez and having a bloody whale of a time.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

Non. They can all suck my balls!

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

Closure.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

It’s probably this one. I’ve run out money and Liver.

BOOK TICKETS FOR PHIL ELLIS HAS BEEN ON ICE AND FUNZ AND GAMEZ: FLOGGING A DEAD HORZE AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Samantha Baines

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Samantha Baines’ latest show, 1 Woman, a High-Flyer and a Flat Bottom, concerns itself with the ‘lost women of science’. Baines will be performing this inventive new show at the Pleasance Courtyard throughout August.
1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

Meeting all of the lovely audiences – Edinburgh audiences are always up for a laugh unless they are too drunk. My show this year and last year is at 3.30pm and in 2016 three woman had drunk so much by 3.30pm that they fell off their seats! I am also excited about this year particularly as my silly rhyming poems will feature in my show for the first time.

2) What was your first Edinburgh show about?

My first show was a three step plan to have a sexually charged coffee with Professor Brian Cox. I was chasing him – it was like a geeky version of foxhunting – coxhunting if you will! However, along the way I discovered all the amazing women who have been to space and decided I should be trying to impress them instead. This year’s show is to readdress the balance of doing a whole show about a man, so this year I set myself the challenge of doing a show about three amazing lost women from science.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

Yes scientists and science enthusiasts like me! I should say I am not a scientist, I am just a woman who wants to get more out of her science GSCE.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

I have done 7or 8 Edinburgh Fringes now (I have lost count) and I don’t think I have had any particularly bad experiences. One year I was acting in a show and I had to share a bed with an actress I had just met but we became friends and she was my maid of honour this year! Oh, one year I did live above a curry house which sounds great but waking up to the smell of curry at 9am on a hangover wasn’t always the best!

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

Well it was amazing to sell out the whole run for my debut stand up show last year at the Pleasance Courtyard. What I treasure most are all the amazing chats I have had with audience members after my show. I have had some wonderful emails from people who have opened up to me about their lives and said my comedy has helped them and that’s incredibly touching and humbling.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

Jess Fostekew’s show Silence of the Nans about a disastrous cruise that she performed on! It sounds hilarious.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

A nice tan?

I don’t know if I hope to gain anything except probably a mild weight gain from all the eating on the go. I hope to have fun, entertain my audiences and watch some inspiring comedy. Actually what I do definitely want is a selfie next to my four foot poster.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

Ohhh Science probably, maybe ageing or some amazing technological advancement. Or maybe my last ever show will be about how I will never stop doing comedy because my mind has now been merged with a computer so I can never die (so that wouldn’t be my last show but it might be my last show in my human body).

BOOK TICKETS FOR SAMANTHA BAINES: 1 WOMAN, A HIGH-FLYER AND A FLAT BOTTOM, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Naomi Sheldon

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Naomi Sheldon’s debut Edinburgh show explores the contrast between being a ‘good girl’ and being a fully matured woman. Good Girl is about self-identity and developing oneself in a 21st century world. Naomi will be performing the show at Just the Tonic at The Mash House throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

This year I felt passionately about getting my voice out there and telling a story that connects with people. With you-know-who heading the most powerful country in the world and an internet culture of shouting down women, it feels more important than ever for female voices to have the space to make their perspective heard. Good Girl looks at what can happen when women self-silence to fit in with what is expected of them. When a powerful woman is a ‘nasty woman’, It’s vital to have an antidote of frank female voices speaking openly.

2) What is your first Edinburgh show about?

It’s a coming-of-age story about growing up in the 90s, BIG emotions and what can happen if you cut them off to fit in. It’s set to a soundtrack of Madonna, Michael Jackson and ABBA. All the feel-goods.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

The best audiences so far have been made up of men and women that grew up in the 90s who all the references really resonate with. But actually, it’s for people who feel like they didn’t fit in growing up. Who have big emotions but have felt they have to keep them bottled up to be accepted.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

I came to Edinburgh over 10 years ago with a student production (of a Shakespeare set in a jazz club…), we all shared beds in this run down flat and a couple of our cast inexplicably contracted scabies! It was hellish. It was dark times.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

My comedy career is a pretty new one and the best moment was quite recent. Good Girl was having a preview in Margate and I could see the audience crying and laughing at the same time. One woman came up to me after and hugged me saying ‘it explains all of us’. That was magic. To connect in that way. It felt like the beginning of a community.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

Jayde Adams’ Jayded, Lucy Pearman’s Maid of Cabbage and Rebecca Humphries’ Prom Kween. I’m also going to be performing in The Canon: A Literary Sketch Show so come see that!

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

An audience, stamina, more guts, a bunch of new comedy mates and a community of people who love this sort of work- honest, bold and funny storytelling.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

Something that binds us all together? Mortality? Love? The Ring?

BOOK TICKETS FOR NAOMI SHELDON: GOOD GIRL, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Loyiso Gola

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I like the fact that I get to do so much stand up comedy, I get to do 28 odd hours of comedy in a month. That’s the best way to get better at stand up comedy. After the festival my show will be water tight. It’s a gruelling 28 but I will never miss it again.

2) What is your first Edinburgh show about?

This particular show is me sharing a journey of growth and self evaluation. I have learnt so much in my 34 years on planet earth. Both good and bad sometimes direct but mostly indirectly. The show unpacks my personal and society’s learning and teachings.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

No not all and unintentionally so. My subject matter resonates across the board. Well actually the millennials tend to back off a bit when you dive into race issues. They really like to mollycoddled through jokes of gender and race dynamics. That annoys me.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

I have always had great accommodation experiences in Edinburgh. I really can’t relate. Jeeeez I sound like a millennial.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

What I appreciate the most about my comedy career is the fact that I travel to and have experienced so many places. I have been to Lagos, Estonia, Melbourne, NYC, Montreal… all from telling jokes.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

I don’t really watch much stand up comedy at all. I find that if I like an act I tend to subconsciously try to emulate them. I will watch the first ten minutes of some stand up on Netflix just to get a feel of the act.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

A killer show that I take to the world. I am also looking forward to the summer sun of Scotland. My highlight is seeing comedians I have not seen in years and catching up.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

It will be about why America still has not had a woman president and Arsenal FC is the best football club in the world.

BOOK TICKETS FOR LOYISO GOLA: UNLEARNING, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Maria Shehata

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1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

When I was a kid we used to take summer vacations with 8 different families and it was the one time of year I got to be around all my close friends and family in one place. That’s a little what the festival feels like to me. 

2) What is your first Edinburgh show about?  

It’s called Wisdomless about my whimsical move to the UK from LA for love, and the realities that followed.

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience? 

I think everyone enjoys me as long as they’re less than three drinks in.

4) What would be your worst Edinburgh accommodation nightmare?

I think my worst nightmare accommodation would be, and I’ve only heard, living with other comedians while some are doing well and others are struggling. I imagine it would be like being in the middle of a break up while your roommate is falling head over heels in love. It takes a special kind of person to not let that bother you.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far? 

Watching an Irish band play at a smokey bar in some secret-y location of a high rise in Ramallah. I was in Palestine because the US Consulate had invited me to perform and they were escorting me everywhere. I felt like it was all slightly dangerous until I saw these Irish people just there chilling.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year? 

Sara Pascoe’s Ladsladslads.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year? 

I have been living in the UK for a year, and feel like it’s a necessary evil when doing comedy here. Not that it’s evil… It is a little evil.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

Considering this show is about what is happening to me right now, I imagine all shows after will be the same, so my last show I will be Skyping in from where I’m about to die, and as soon as a joke does well I’ll say “thank you goodnight!” And die.

BOOK TICKETS FOR MARIA SHEHATA: WISDOMLESS, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Annie McGrath

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Annie McGrath, who performed at the Edinburgh Festival last year with Jack Barry as part of Twins, returns to the Fringe this year with her latest show Ambivert. She will be performing at Just the Tonic at The Mash House throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

It’s like being at university again. You live within walking distance of your friends, and you can go to bed whenever you like!

2) What was your first Edinburgh show about?

Last year was my first solo show in Edinburgh and it was called The Seven Ages of An. The narrative was that I was proving my acting abilities to an old, incredibly successful, school friend… But it was essentially just a parody of observational stand-up told from the perspectives of seven different characters: a seven year old, an 89 year old, a sperm, a ghost, a middle-aged woman, a baby, and a 26 year-old (me… TWIST!).

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

I’m not sure really. I only notice the weird old men who seem too attracted to it.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

In 2010, there was a night when three of us got locked out and had to sleep outside our flat on a stone spiral staircase.

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

My friend Max pissing into a bottle every night backstage before our show because there was no loo in the venue.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

Mae Martin and Nick Coyle are doing a late night show at City Café called Show Party, which I will definitely be seeing. We did a preview together recently and they are both brilliant.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

I’m hoping I’ll come back a millionaire. That’s why we do it. For all that sweet ca$h.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about? (If you dare!)

Oh god. I dare to imagine. Maybe in ten years I’ll do a best of. A ten minute show.

BOOK TICKETS FOR ANNIE MCGRATH: AMBIVERT, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Andy Daly

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© Mandee Johnson

Andy Daly is an American sketch comic and improviser who is bringing his most popular monstrous comedy characters to this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Daly’s show, Monsters Take Your Questions, will be at the Gilded Balloon’s Wine Bar throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

I’m excited to see some comedians I’ve never seen before and very excited to perform for a fun-loving festival crowd. My show involves a lot of audience participation and I’m curious to see what the Edinburghers bring to it.

2) What is your first Edinburgh show about?

My show features three of my most beloved (and most monstrous) characters who will tell the audience a little bit about themselves and then throw the floor open to questions. So what is it about? I guess we’ll find out together!

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

When I perform live in the States, my audience tends to be people who’ve heard me on comedy podcasts. These folks are true comedy fans, comedy connoisseurs, if you will. Also, they don’t mind when things get a little raunchy. My characters are lovably disgusting! I actually have no idea how familiar Scottish audiences are with my characters. I’m guessing I’ll be performing for some existing fans as well as some people who have no idea what I do. Should be fun. 

4) What would be your worst Edinburgh accommodation nightmare?

Probably jail. I’ll bet that’s the worst place to stay in Edinburgh. I’m going to try very hard to stay out of jail. But no promises!

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

Can I give you three? I got to be in a sketch with Martin Short once. I got to improvise with Fred Willard. I got to sit around on a set and nerd out about 70s comedy with Martin Mull, Chevy Chase and Julie Haggerty. Those are fun times I’ll never forget. 

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

Because I’m traveling with my kids, the only shows I’ve looked into so far are kids shows. There’s a kids production of Macbeth that I can’t wait to check out. It’s about time my daughters reckoned with the consequences of murder!

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

My goal is really just to have an enjoyable time. Anything beyond that will be gravy. But the idea of being introduced to the UK audience and getting to work there more often really appeals to me. I’m such a fan of British comedy and I’d love to be a part of it.

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

There’s a decent chance this IS my last ever show. And I don’t even know what this one’s about. So that’s a tough one. 

BOOK TICKETS FOR ANDY DALY: MONSTERS TAKE YOUR QUESTIONS, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Michael Stranney

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© James Deacon

Michael Stranney is an innovative character comic from Northern Ireland who is performing his latest inventively surreal show Welcome to Ballybeg as his character Daniel Duffy. Stranney will be performing at the Pleasance Courtyard throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

The buzz of performing a good show is pretty exhilarating. It’s like a surfer chasing that perfect wave. Out of a full run, you would hope to have at least one of those experiences, and hopefully make all the times the show died on it’s ass worth it. But really what excites me is just the general festival atmosphere. There’s good camaraderie between all the comedians, and everyone is just wanting everyone to have a good time. I’m also looking forward to hanging out with my cousins who rather conveniently live in Edinburgh.

2) What is your first Edinburgh show about?

My show is in the form of an off the wall tourist board presentation for the fictional Northern Irish village of Ballybeg. I play a character called Daniel Duffy who has been entrusted to take the presentation over to Edinburgh. Inevitably the projector showing the promotional tourist footage keeps breaking down, and I fill in the gaps with stories about the silly and surreal characters that make up this backward and sheltered village. 

3) Does your comedy attract a certain type of audience?

I suppose my style of comedy is not conventional stand up and probably would be described as off-beat. It definitely wouldn’t work on a rowdy Friday night in a Jongleurs in Plymouth. And I’ve had my fair share of deaths in the typical club setting, but the good thing is there’s literally no swearing, or anything blue in my stuff so it’s technically for everyone. I don’t have a certain type of audience I don’t think, although I find slightly older people tend to like my stuff more. Some people absolutely love it while others sit there with a clenched jaw until I get off the stage. It really depends.

4) What is the worst experience you’ve had with Edinburgh accommodation?

I’m Irish and so I have approximately 3.6millions cousins worldwide and I’m incredibly lucky that out of that 3.6million, some of them live in Edinburgh. They kindly put me up each year and I move around between them as much as I can so to avoid becoming like a poo that won’t flush. My worst Edinburgh accommodation nightmare would be that they all suddenly decide to pack their bags and move out of Edinburgh, because then I would have to start selling my body to afford to rent a room for a month, and I want to avoid that for as long as possible

5) What is your most treasured memory of your comedy career so far?

Probably winning the New Act of the Year in 2015. There was around 500 people in the audience, so it was the biggest crowd I had ever performed to, and I had a bunch of friends and family who I had invited to see me. I was so nervous beforehand and I can’t really remember the set. I just remembered finishing it and being hit with what felt like a wall of laughter. I never had an experience like that before or since. It was amazing, and when I was announced as the winner, and all my friends jumped to their feet and the confetti canons went off on stage, it was genuinely unforgettable.

6) What show will you definitely be seeing at the festival this year?

Definitely going to see John Kearns. I love his stuff so much. If I was a mad billionaire, I’d hire him to just read me the phonebook, and I know I’d absolutely piss myself laughing.

7) What do you hope to gain from the Edinburgh Festival this year?

I’m hoping it would lead to a few more opportunities in comedy. Anything really at this stage, I’m not fussy. Just a few things that might help to pull myself back out of the debt I’ve put myself in. Even if it’s not comedy, even if someone said ‘Listen, liked your stuff. I’ve nothing to do with the comedy industry but I do run a successful double glazing company and I pay my salesmen incredibly handsomely, plus commission, and a free company car, what do you say?’

8) What do you imagine your last ever show will be about?

Well depending how August goes, it could be about an off the wall tourist board presentation for the fictional Northern Irish village of Ballybeg. But hopefully not…

BOOK TICKETS FOR MICHAEL STRANNEY: WELCOME TO BALLYBEG, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017