Phil Jarvis of Consignia’s alternative review of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe

“If you like fat blokes sweating, futuristic, nihilistic storylines, confusion… and a LOT…”

I blogged about the commendably eccentric Consignia comedy group at the beginning of last week.

They are currently at the Edinburgh Fringe

Their penultimate show is tonight; their run finishes tomorrow.

Yesterday morning,The Scotsman gave their show The Flatterers a 4-star review.

Critic Kate Copstick’s piece included: “I won’t understand Consignia. I never understand Consignia. I suspect that they, themselves, don’t understand Consignia. But some things are just not meant to be understood… 

Phil, an otherwise amiable and admirable chap

“Consignia fans will be surprised at the use of an unexpected joke at one point, but, as usual, if you like fat blokes sweating, futuristic, nihilistic storylines, confusion, repetition and a LOT of poo, then this is undoubtedly the show for you.”

I thought it would be interesting for Consignia’s main begetter Phil Jarvis to write a review of his time at the Fringe this year. 

The result is below. 

The neglected brutalism of Glasgow’s Savoy Shopping Mall…

I should warn you in advance that Phil – an otherwise amiable and admirable chap – has an unfathomable adoration of brutalist architecture…

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Edinburgh in the sunshine makes the city exceedingly beautiful, if that was even possible. However, I started off in Glasgow, enjoying the neglected brutalism of the Savoy Shopping Mall, which I give 10/10

At-swim comics Caitriona Dowden and Nate Kitch

Eventually, I make my way to Edinburgh, where I watch three afternoons in a row of Nate Kitch and Caitriona Dowden’s double bill, At-Swim-Two-Birds but it’s Two Comics called Nate Kitch and Caitriona Dowden at BrewDog (The Garage)… enjoying the masterful storytelling and deadpan delivery of Caitriona’s set and Nate’s commitment to pushing his ideas to unexpected outcomes. 10/10

Some of what surreal Alwin Solanky left behind in Uganda…

Alwin Solanky’s monologue at the Omni Centre – about his personal experiences as a refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda – What You Leave Behind makes me cry each time I’ve seen it.

This is a show that deserves to be snapped up by arts theatres across the land, detailing the social relations of living in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s as a refugee, told through well-crafted vignettes and the approachable surrealism I have come to expect from Alwin. 10/10

Sisyphean Mark Dean Quinn really did have a stroke

Mark Dean Quinn’s show Mark Dean Quinn: Has a Stroke but at Least He Got a Show Out of It at the Revolution Bar is different each evening. The first set I see ends with a visibly distressed Mark. I overhear some audience members asking afterwards if that was real. Oh yes, all too real.

The next time I see the show, Mark puts himself and the audience through even more of an endurance test with a flip chart. I count only one walk out: a real feat considering Mark is possibly the most experimental comedian in the UK devoted to a Sisyphean struggle. 10/10

Bleeding Baby Train psychedelia with Rob Duncan

The Omni Centre venue has wonderfully put together performance spaces with stages, with an unfortunate consequence of sound bleeding from one show into another. This makes for an interesting experience. 

Within this sound collage, I watch Rob Duncan’s Baby Trains which delivers the goods on a segue, a functioning train set prop in his hands, taking the audience on a journey of being a CEO and a teacher. Perfect psychedelia for my sunburnt scalp. 10/10

Ceci n’est pas un cheval… C’est un spectacle.

Also at the Omni Centre, I zoned out a bit to Soliloquy of a Horse, but my headspace was probably on the right planet for this tale of misadventure and redemption, performed in a stripped-back, low-fi aesthetic with no props, apart from a chair in the middle.

Perfect ground to just let your imagination run wild conjuring up the visions the storytelling leads you on. 10/10

I show my pal from Consignia, Nathan “Wilco” Willcock, the Basil Spence designed Canongate building (10/10), with the concrete fire exit taking our senses to a state of transcendence. 

4-star Jarvis (L) plays it cool with Willcock…

On this high, we find out Kate Copstick has given our show a 4-star review in The Scotsman. Wilco is desperate to find a copy of The Scotsman. I just play it cool but, secretly, I’m happy.

As it turns out, the gig we do that evening is the worst it’s been the whole run. The costumes Nathan and I wear are now drenched in the fat man sweat we have unleashed over the run so far and humming hard. Nathan performs with minimal energy and I flounder not knowing how to riff off it. 0/10

I bury my sorrows by paying an overpriced £7.50 for chips, cheese and curry sauce, lathered in brown sauce (10/10) on the walk back to the digs. 

St Andrew’s House: creates ecstasy for two (Photo by Daboss)

The next day, to rejuvenate ourselves, a trip up to Carlton Hill has Nathan and me ecstatic at the sight of the Art Deco St Andrew’s House (10/10).

We climb up the steps to Carlton Hill and Nathan is disgusted at the sight, in the distance, of a shopping mall that now looks like a Mr Whippy style turd (1/10). 

Still, Edinburgh is pretty beautiful in the sun.

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Consignia’s latest and possibly last ever show The Flatterers 

Consignia’s latest and possibly last ever show The Flatterers ends tomorrow.

Sometime during that theatrical experience at the Banshee Labyrinth, they will also be giving out their Gareth Morinan Alternative New Act Of The Year Award.

I  realise none of this venue information is of any practical use to my long-suffering reader in far-off Guatemala nor for anyone reading this three years hence, but I feel obliged to share it for completism’s sake.

 

The anarchic post modernist comedy group named after the Post Office. Not.

The interior of Cafe Diana in London’s Notting Hill

Consignia won last year’s Alternative New Comedian of the Year title. The comedy group are Phil Jarvis, Andy Barr, Nathan Willcock and now “newcomer Jason Bridge”.

Phil and Nathan had tea with me in Cafe Diana – a culinary shrine to the late Princess of Wales, opposite the Consular Section of the Russian Embassy in London’s Notting Hill and near the brutalist Czech Embassy. It was their choice of venue. Also present was Dec Munro, one of the begetters of Angel Comedy’s Bill Murray club.

Dec has let them have an entire afternoon of six previews at the Bill Murray on Sunday 5th February – from 1.45pm to 6.00pm, unless they repeat everything twice, in which case who knows?

Publicity logo for The Abridged Dapper Eleven-Hour Monochrome Dream Show

Consignia were performing in Swansea last night. If I had been more efficient, I could have posted this blog before then to give the gig a plug.

But I wasn’t and didn’t.

At last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, I saw their show The Abridged Dapper Eleven-Hour Monochrome Dream Show twice. Well, I had little alternative. When it got to the end of their one-hour slot, they simply did the whole show again from beginning to end. When we met at Cafe Diana, Nathan was feeling ill and was very tired. Our conversation, under walls covered in photos of Princess Diana, went like this:

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Phil Jarvis at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015

JOHN: I was surprised when you repeated the show in Edinburgh that there seemed to have been a script.

NATHAN: The Leicester Comedy Festival is the last time we will do that show.

PHIL: Yeah. Saturday 25th February.

NATHAN: And, after Leicester, we will do something new for Edinburgh this year.

PHIL: At the Edinburgh Fringe, I want to do an unofficial Dinner For One tribute show. I am trying to get the smallest room I can and put a table in it with six people round it.

JOHN: Isn’t the whole point of Dinner For One that he is serving things to non-existent people?

PHIL: But you could have someone playing the tiger rug and people playing the people who aren’t there.

JOHN: This show would run the whole duration of the Fringe?

PHIL: It would be a one-off. There would be a knees-up, because that’s what the show is.

JOHN: Is it?

PHIL: I think it is, yeah. A melancholic knees-up.

JOHN: A sort of Chas & Dave with tears?

PHIL: (TO ME) We are waiting for Bridge.

JOHN: Bridge?

PHIL: Jason Bridge.

JOHN: Like Godot?

PHIL: Mmmm…

JOHN: But, apart from your Dinner For One with six people, what is the new Consignia show for Edinburgh?

Nathan Willcock (left) & Phil Jarvis pay homage to Lady Diana

PHIL: Panopticon.

JOHN: Why is it called that?

PHIL: It has to be more pretentious than last year’s.

NATHAN: We have a gig booked in Norwich for it already.

JOHN: Oh, I’m sorry.

PHIL: We did it last year. That’s where last year’s gig found its feet. Before that, The Abridged Dapper Eleven-Hour Monochrome Dream Show was a disaster.

NATHAN: I went to university in Norwich.

JOHN: Oh, I’m sorry.

PHIL: I’m going to run a gig in Basingstoke.

JOHN: What? Into the ground?

PHIL: Probably. It’s a regular monthly gig.

JOHN: Called…?

PHIL: Goat.

JOHN: Because it will make people feel horny?

PHIL: No. It’s just a name.

DEC: Someone named their rap album Goat.

Phil Jarvis (right) listens to his notes; Dec Munro concentrates

PHIL: I think there’s a band called Goat as well.

JOHN: And an animal.

PHIL: If you put the words ‘a Comedy Club’ next to it, it says ‘Go at a Comedy Club’.

NATHAN: Nobody says: “Go at a comedy club.”

PHIL: I do.

NATHAN: You should call it GOAT 2 – “Goat 2 a comedy club.”

JOHN: So why call yourselves Consignia?

NATHAN: We didn’t have a name in Edinburgh last year, but now we have retrospectively given ourselves a name.

JOHN (TO NATHAN): Are you going to fall forward unconscious into that soup or what?

Nathan Willcock alas did not fall into his soup

NATHAN: It’s very hot.

JOHN: Why did you choose the name Consignia?

NATHAN: It was going to be the new name of the Post Office but they got rid of it, so we thought: We’ll have it.

JOHN: You didn’t think of calling yourselves The Post Office?

PHIL: It’s not as funny.

NATHAN: With Consignia, only a few people remember it happening. It was so stupid. I had to check with people: Did that actually happen?

JOHN: Ah. So it IS suitable for your shows, then.

NATHAN: We are hoping to get into a high-profile legal battle with the bloke who thought up the name.

PHIL: We like faded things.

JOHN: Is that why you invited me here?

NATHAN: We like pointless, meaningless things.

PHIL: That is why we like brutalism in architecture.

Nathan Willcock and Phil Jarvis approve the brutalism of the Czech Embassy in London

JOHN: Are you sure you are not misunderstanding the word? It is not just beating-up people in the street.

PHIL: We want to perform at The Comedy Store.

JOHN: In the Gong Show bit?

NATHAN: Yes. They film you and you can pay £5 to get a copy. We could probably use it in our new show: about us being booed off. We will just stay on stage.

PHIL: They will be gonging and we will just stay on until the bouncers come on to get us. They will think about it a bit.

NATHAN: Basically, we want them to get violent… and then we will see if we can still get the video.

JOHN: You really do misunderstand what Brutalism is.

NATHAN: He still hasn’t turned up.

JOHN: Who?

PHIL: Jason Bridge. He will be with us in Leicester. With my son.

JOHN: You have a son?

PHIL: No.

NATHAN: Do you remember anything from our show in Edinburgh?

JOHN: No.

NATHAN: The one you sat through twice.

JOHN: No. I do remember the second time was a revelation because I thought: I’ve never seen anything like this before.

PHIL: Do you not remember me covered in blood wearing a gas mask, holding my son?

JOHN: No. I thought I must have dreamt that.

PHIL: You saw my penis.

JOHN: Did I see it twice?

PHIL: Yes you did.

JOHN: I don’t remember it.

NATHAN: My girlfriend hates that.

Can you spot Nathan Willcock in his Facebook header image?

JOHN: His penis?

NATHAN: No… Nicholas. Because Nicholas is covered in egg and mud…

JOHN: His son?

PHIL: …and guacamole…

NATHAN:…but I refuse to throw it out. It’s in our cupboard.

JOHN: Why is guacamole funny? All those Al Queda prisoners in there for years on end…

PHIL: Do you not remember our show at all, John?

JOHN: No.

NATHAN: You remember we put a carrot and some humus on stage…

JOHN: Did you?

NATHAN: …and then played a really slowed-down version of Daphne & Celeste and then walked off stage and the audience just looked at this carrot and humus.

PHIL: One night, we couldn’t find any humus. We could only find discounted guacamole.

NATHAN: That was the night the second show happened – the X-rated one – the night you were there, John. We did everything naked.

JOHN: Did you?

NATHAN: And, instead of putting a carrot in the guacamole, we put Phil’s penis in it and put a microphone to it.

JOHN: Did you?

NATHAN: And guacamole is a bit spicy so Phil said it hurt quite a bit.

PHIL: I had a mild burn for the rest of the Fringe.

Phil Jarvis felt off-colour during the Fringe

NATHAN: That’s how committed we are.

JOHN: And your girlfriend is not keen on this?

PHIL: His fiancée now.

JOHN: (TO NATHAN) Oh! Congratulations.

NATHAN: She asked me.

JOHN: How did she ask you?

NATHAN: She took me to Belgium.

JOHN: Is that a euphemism I don’t know? I have heard “took me round the world” but never “took me to Belgium”.

NATHAN: Ghent. She didn’t go down on one knee. She just gave me a ring underneath the belfry.

JOHN: Is that another euphemism I haven’t heard?

NATHAN: December 9th. The wedding. It’s going to have a Christmas theme. We had a load of crackers delivered the other day.

JOHN: In January? For your December wedding? That’s forward planning.

NATHAN: She’s very organised. We have put the soundtrack for The Abridged Dapper Eleven-Hour Monochrome Dream Show up on Bandcamp and you can buy the full album for £1,000. You can also download individual tracks for free.

JOHN: It is all commercialism with you, isn’t it?