Interview

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Sleeping Trees

Leave a Comment
Sleeping Trees (James Dunnell-Smith, John Woodburn and Joshua George Smith) are returning to the Edinburgh Festival with their three previous movie shows, Mafia?, Western? and Sci-Fi?. Directed by Tom Parry of Pappy’s fame, this high-energy group will be performing at the Pleasance Dome throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

It’s the only place in the world you can watch the best thing you’ve ever seen and the worst thing you’ve ever seen, potentially in the same day or even same venue. It’s a real mix of stuff. Which is brilliant.

2) What was your first Edinburgh show about?

Our first Edinburgh show came up in 2009. It was our take on Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree. Except it was nothing like it at all. We hadn’t bothered to research the plot and messed about with whatever we did know. We were in the Hive (before it was cool) at about 2pm and every time we turned up to do the show they would still be hosing down the sick from the night before. We were so new to the game we didn’t even know to ask for donations after. Learnt a lot that year.

© Mark Dawson

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

We have been described before as alternative comedy with a broad appeal, which we like, we wouldn’t want to alienate any of our audience members to thinking it’s “not for them”.

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

One year the owner of the flat neglected to tell us that an Australian elf (his words) would be staying in the flat for a week. We were already cramped for space. However we ended up really bonding with him and were gutted to see him go.

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

The first year we went to Edinburgh we saw Suitcase Royale perform in the Pleasance Two and we loved it. It then became something of an aspiration to perform there. Four years later we did, and the first time we sold it out was unbelievable. Will always remember that feeling. 

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

There is so much amazing stuff to see this year. Hoping to catch Gein’s Family Giftshop, Jordan Brookes and David McIver. But I will definitely be catching Joz Norris as I met my girlfriend at his show two years ago so we go every time, and because he’s brilliant.

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

We are just hoping to give any one who missed these shows when they previously played the Fringe another chance to catch them or anyone who wants to watch them again. We aren’t eligible for any awards or anything this year which is nice. We can just enjoy a year in which we are just performing for the people. 

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

We always say we want each show to feel a bit grander than the last, so if we can keep coming up with stuff we will have to end of some kind of Evel Knievel jumping over a school bus type affair. It had better be funny.

BOOK TICKETS FOR SLEEPING TREES AT THE MOVIES AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Stephen Bailey

Leave a Comment

© Steve Ullathorne

Everyone’s favourite sharp-tongued, loveable gossip returns to the Edinburgh Festival this year with his new show Can’t Think Straight. Stephen Bailey will be performing at the Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters throughout August.

1) What excites you most about the Edinburgh Festival?

I feel like the Fringe is the end of year disco. And then September you get to start a fresh and I love it.

2) What was your first Edinburgh show about?

My first Edinburgh show was about how a boy broke my heart and broke me down. Woe is me. This new one is about finding the self confidence to be comfortable in my own skin again

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

I have a surprisingly mainstream audience. Everyone comes – male, female, young, old (71-year-old Bob in Southend is obsessed with me), straight, gay. I love it.

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

When a toilet exploded into the carpet and human faeces leaked into said carpet and the landlord wouldn’t do anything until we left at the end of August.

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

Finally feeling like I was being taken seriously as a comedian and I must say that came from Katherine Ryan very generously taking me on tour with her when no one else would have me.

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

Eggs Collective, Evelyn Mok, Ellie Taylor, Grainne Maguire, Jayde Adams, Charlotte Church and just when you think I only love women, I’m going to see the pro that is Rich Wilson.

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

I’d really like just to keep building that audience. I’d also like to eat a lot of takeaways with my roomie Jayde Adams. Just have a laugh. It’s a comedy festival.

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

I hope it never ends. But I’d love to be doing a show one day where we’re laughing back at how stupid we used to be at voting #Brexit #Trump.

BOOK TICKETS FOR STEPHEN BAILEY: CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT, AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

THE EDINBURGH INTERVIEWS 2017

The Edinburgh Interviews 2017: Sisters

Leave a Comment

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

Leave a Comment
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

1 Comment
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

Leave a Comment
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

Leave a Comment
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

Leave a Comment

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

Leave a Comment

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

Leave a Comment
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