Kevin James Doyle: The Edinburgh Interviews 2019
Who? Kevin James Doyle
What? Loud Blond Bald Kid
Where? Laughing Horse @ Bar 50 – Marquee (Venue 151)
When? 13:45
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
I am excited to be coming back; my first Fringe was 2017 and I was going in completely blind. I think I will be much more prepared this time around and also have a better understanding of what I am trying to accomplish. And I am excited to see other shows, some of the shows I saw in 2017 have still stuck with me so I am just excited to explore what is there and be inspired by it.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
It is an hour of stand-up and storytelling about adolescence and growing up. I found a journal from a theater camp I attended when I was 15 years old and it is so painfully earnest. I started to read some excerpts from it onstage and people found it hilarious, especially as I was cringing at how embarrassing it was. Through that I found so much more material about first kisses, bullying kids, getting bullied, pubes, trying to be cool and all the things that we all went through and are glad is behind us.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
I just filmed my previous show The 30 Year Old Virgin for a comedy special and the best feeling in the world is doing material that works and you are in the zone with. Just a month later I had my first full performance of Loud Blond Bald Kid and it was a great reminder of how much new material doesn’t get better without time and constant reworking. I always was surprised how many tender and emotional aspects of the show I have had to push into, because some of the pain from that time in life can be easy to dismiss and it’s been interesting trying to make those painful stories truthful and funny.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
I appreciate it more than I did before. After doing it once I knew I wanted to do it again and that I had to know what I was going to bring and know that it needed to be good and by the end of Fringe it could be great. We just don’t have anything like this in the US and it forces you to drill down into what you want to say and why that is beyond just ‘I want to be funny’. I appreciate how it challenged you to separate yourself and be in competition with 3000 other shows because it forces me to ask ‘why should they come to your show?’ and then hopefully have a good answer for myself.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
Dan Soder and Emmy Blotnick are both amazing New York comedians that people should not miss.
Where would you like to be in a year’s time?
I would like to have The 30 Year Old Virgin out in the world for people to find and to have filmed Loud Blond Bald Kid as a comedy special and be getting ready to be writing a third hour of stand-up and storytelling about whatever is most important to me at that time. I think I have an hour in me about God and religion, I grew up in a conservative Christian home. And hopefully have more material out there for people to find me and sell more tickets to my shows.
GET YOUR TICKETS FOR KEVIN JAMES DOYLE: ‘LOUD BLOND BALD KID’ HERE