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…
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.
Consignia’s latest and possibly last ever show The Flatterers
Consignia’s latest and possibly last ever show The Flatterersends 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.
Admirably anarchic comedy group Consignia are performing their show The Flatterers at the Edinburgh Fringe starting this Saturday (6th-14th August).
It is a free show – you can pay what you like at the end – and it is not listed in the Edinburgh Fringe brochure.
Last year, they got two reviews at the Fringe, both 4-stars:
“They actively want you to walk out” ★★★★ (Chortle)
“They eschew likeability” ★★★★ (The Scotsman)
I chatted to Consignia’s Phil Jarvis and (late-on) Nathan Willcox via Skype…
Phil Jarvis (left) at home with a non-Vietnamese doll with a beard (right)…
JOHN: What is that doll?
PHIL: I bought it in Poland the other day. It looks like Ho Chi Minh a bit.
JOHN: ho ho Ho Chi Minh… No it doesn’t. In my bedroom, I have a painting of Uncle Ho writing in a forest. That doll doesn’t look like him.
An inexplicable painting of Ho Chi Minh in a forest in my bedroom…
PHIL: It has his beard.
JOHN: Is the doll relevant to your show?
PHIL: No.
JOHN: Why is your show called The Flatterers?
PHIL: There was a 16th century painting called The Flatterers, so we just borrowed the title. It was about brown-nosing, so we thought we’d use that. By Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
Potentially relevant – The Flatterers by Pieter Brueghel the Younger…
JOHN: That doesn’t really answer the question Why is your show called The Flatterers?
PHIL: OK. The reason it’s called The Flatterers is because it’s about the billionaires leaving Earth in the near future and me and Nathan play people who are on a sort-of a waste ship that takes away the rubbish from the billionaires’ spaceship. Basically, our spaceship is full of shit and detritus from the billionaires and Nathan thinks that, by eating the billionaires’ ship, he will himself become a billionaire.
JOHN: That still doesn’t really answer the question Why is your show called The Flatterers?
PHIL: It’s an A-Level style metaphor about the billionaires just shitting on everyone else. So it’s just really hammering home a (LAUGHS) quite obvious idea. Originally it was going to be a show called The Urn – a person who is having the launch for his art show dies and… But we’re not going to do that because I saw the error of my ways.
JOHN: The Flatterers is only on at the Fringe from the 6th to the 14th August because…
PHIL: Money. I’m paying to go to one of those student dorms and it’s £700 for a week.
An unrelated Consignia show was Lemonade…
JOHN: The Flatterers starts at 11.00pm and is billed as being one hour long. I find this difficult to believe. I saw that hour-long show you did which lasted about 3 hours. You are the Ken Dodd of anarchic comedy. You got to the end of the show, then just did the whole thing again. How performing a 1-hour show twice even lasted 3 hours I don’t know. Has any poor sod got a midnight show supposedly following your 11.00pm show in the Banshee Labyrinth?
PHIL: (LAUGHS) Last year’s show was 50 minutes and we ran to time.
JOHN: Is The Flatterers really going to be the last ever Consignia show?
PHIL: I would genuinely like it to be the last one. It feels like… Why not? Why not just end it? Once you get good reviews, why not just end it and do something different. I think that’s a better tactic than…
PHIL: (LAUGHS) Maybe not THAT different! Nathan and I already do a podcast: Modernist Cat Wee Wee.
JOHN: Nathan got married. Has that affected the dynamics of the group?
PHIL: Maybe. Well, it was quite a struggle to get Nathan to come up to the Fringe this year.
JOHN: You get an audience, though…
PHIL: You came to the early shows before we were even called Consignia – when the shows were billed as Malcolm Julian Swan Presents – and they had a funny energy to them. And then it kind of found its audience without any flyering, which I feel a bit smug about while being bemused about it too. It doesn’t make any sense.
JOHN: Sounds like a good show review.
(There is a recording of the 2015 pre-Consignia show Malcolm Julian Swan Presents: Hokum on Soundcloud),
Galaxy, scrambled egg or vomit? You decide.
JOHN: When I look at the poster image for The Flatterers, am I wrong in thinking that’s a picture of a bit of vomit on some tarmac?
PHIL: It is, yes. That is our anti-poster. You’re meant to have your picture on a Fringe poster, probably taken by that photographer Steve Best…
JOHN: …or Steve Ullathorne. The Fringe is over-endowed with people called Steve.
PHIL: You’re supposed to look like you’re in a Top Shop kind of thing, but we’re all past 30 now, so we can’t even look smart. We put on a nice 4-star review from Kate Copstick (in The Scotsman) and a good 4-star review from Steve Bennett (on chortle.co.uk).
JOHN: Like I said – over-endowed …
PHIL: We put the review stars on there and our two nominations from the Leicester Comedy Festival, but then we thought Fuck Off! We’re not going to put our faces on it!
JOHN: You reckon, once you are over 30, you are past performing anarchy at the Fringe?
PHIL: Definitely! Once you get into your 30s, you are… well, the advertisers don’t aim at that group. If you go to Berlin, as we did recently – all these hip and happening places – they’re all aimed at people in their 20s, really.
JOHN: Consignia played Berlin?
PHIL: Yes, we did a show called Maastricht Reloaded, which was actually made in 2019. We built a ClingFilm wall, which we stood behind.
Maastricht Reloaded by Consignia in Berlin…
It was just an improvised show about three hours long about the Maastricht Treaty. We weaved-in a story about Guy Fawkes travelling through time, trying to torpedo John Major’s government.
JOHN: Social realism, then?
PHIL: (LAUGHS) Pretty much, yeah.
JOHN: Pseudo-realism?
PHIL: That’s a great name.
JOHN: You can have it… You played the Fringe last year.
2021: “50 minutes of Migraine…” at the Fringe
PHIL: Yes, It was called Migraine. That was the one we got the 4-star reviews for.
The show’s blurb said it was “50 minutes of migraine”.
We were being quite honest.
JOHN: This year’s show is not listed in the Fringe brochure.
PHIL: Why give money to the Fringe Society when you’ve seen what kind of shit-weasels they are with that duplicity about the app?
(The Fringe Society charged performers in advance but never told them there was no Fringe app for finding shows this year, as there had been last year,)
JOHN: Shit-weasels?…
PHIL: It’s disgusting. What kind of people do that? The Fringe Society is just a toff club.
JOHN: If this really is the last Consignia show, how are you going to unleash your inner anarchy in future?
PHIL: I dunno. Who knows? I think maybe that’s why Consignia was there in the first place: to fulfil that inner need and to get a release. Though I think it became a bit more than that.
JOHN: So that’s enough for the blog…
PHIL: … and here’s the fucking prick!
(NATHAN WILLCOX ARRIVES ON THE SKYPE SCREEN)
PHIL: Where have you been? We’ve been talking for 24 minutes.
NATHAN: You didn’t invite me.
PHIL: That’s no excuse…
On Skype, Phil Jarvis (left) and Nathan Willcox focus on explaining their show title…
JOHN: Why is your show called The Flatterers?
NATHAN: It’s a gross-out, state-of-the-nation piece. It’s set in the not-too distant future when Earth has become uninhabitable due to…
JOHN: …the French?
NATHAN: Probably. Your words. Or climate change. Could be something else. Never specified.
We are in space on Waste Ship 6668…
JOHN: I get 666. Why 8?
PHIL: It’s a Dante reference.
JOHN: Joe Dante, the director of Gremlins?
NATHAN: No. Dante. The Divine Comedy. The 8th level was where The Flatterers were – in the 8th circle of Hell.
JOHN: I thought it was something to do with Pieter Brueghel the Younger…
NATHAN: The show was originally conceived by Phil because of Navara Media’s Left Wing reporter Ash Sarkar. There was a Tweet I sent Phil where there was an article about the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezoses… Their ships, when they go up in space… their waste gets thrown out and burns up in the atmosphere and is often mistaken for shooting stars. The Tweet said something like: Oh what a perfect metaphor for capitalism or something.
I sent that to Phil and he said: “Oh, we should do a show about that!”
JOHN: Close encounters of the turd kind?
PHIL: That’s gotta be the pull-quote from your blog.
JOHN: I can die happy.
(THERE IS AN 18-MINUTE, 46 SECOND CONSIGNIA “WELCOME TO DUNGENESS” VIDEO ON VIMEO WHICH HAS NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THEIR NEW SHOW “THE FLATTERERS”… AS FAR AS I KNOW…)
Last Sunday, I went to Lottie Bowater’s Depresstival event at The Others venue in Stoke Newington to chat to Phil Jarvis of Consignia about a gig they are performing this coming Sunday at the Bill Murray venue in Islington.
Phil had been to Highgate Cemetery the previous day.
Consignia – named after a failed attempt at re-branding by the Royal Mail – are always interesting. I went to see one of their late-night shows at the Edinburgh Fringe and, at the end, they decided to repeat the whole show. So their one-hour show turned into a two-hour show.
“So,” I said to Phil, “this show on Sunday at the Bill Murray. You told me it’s about neo-liberalism. What on earth is that?”
Phil performing at Depresstival last Sunday
PHIL: Privatise everything. Privatise the whole lot. That’s what neo-liberalism is about
ME: The whole lot of what?
PHIL: Eh… Jobs.
ME: Jobs ARE privatised, aren’t they? Unless they’re public sector jobs?
PHIL: Well, I dunno, I mean, it’s dismantling of the state.
(AT THIS POINT, COMIC ALEXANDER BENNETT ARRIVED)
ME (TO ALEXANDER): Your scarf only starts halfway up.
PHIL: It’s the Euan Blair way.
ME (TO PHIL): Alexander is going to play Tony Blair’s son on Sunday?
PHIL: Yeah.
ME (TO PHIL): You went to Highgate Cemetery yesterday. Why?
PHIL: To look at dead Marxists.
ME: So neo-liberalism is privatising everything?
PHIL: Yes. There’s lots of job insecurity. There are competing Santas because Santa is dead.
ME: It is a Christmas show?
PHIL: Yes.
ME: Did I know this?
PHIL: I don’t know. It’s a Christmas show about neo-liberalism. Santa is dead and Euan Blair has made sure there’s lots of competing Santas.
ME: So who is performing in this show?
PHIL: Consignia.
ME: Consignia changes occasionally. Is Andy Barr in it?
PHIL: Yes.
ME: But Alexander is not in Consignia.
PHIL: Yes he is. Everyone is in Consignia. You are in Consignia. The whole world is in Consignia.
ME: Could we privatise a percentage of them?
PHIL: That is what the show is about – About fighting back against that.
ME: You said it was about privatising things.
PHIL: No. And it’s coming together quite nicely.
ME: You mean it is organised? Well, that is no use. Consignia has a style to maintain. I was slightly worried you had sold out when I read on social media the word ‘script’…
PHIL: There is always a script. But it is just a guide.
ME: It was unsettling when I saw that Edinburgh show where you did it twice and the second time was pretty much the same as the first time. I thought: “There surely can’t be a script!”
PHIL: Exactly. That is how it is. A script is a prompt. It’s not something you have to religiously stick to.
ME: Like Christmas?… So, this Christmas show on Sunday, is it going to be in Edinburgh next August?
PHIL: No. It’s a special show with lots of our friends in it.
ME: Oh dear. Such as?
PHIL: Seán Morley. It’s all the talent.
ME: I have gone off the idea now. It’s the word “talent”.
PHIL: It’s gonna be a spectacle.
ALEXANDER: It’s all good people, but they’ve not abandoned what Consignia is.
ME: What is Consignia?
ALEXANDER: Phil.
ME (TO PHIL): Are you going to take your clothes off in it?”
PHIL: I’ve reined that in now. I think the way to go is to put more clothes on.
ME: I am rapidly going off this show. It has a script and you are not going to get your kit off.
ALEXANDER: I haven’t had a drink since yesterday morning.
ME: That’s hardly giving up drink…
ALEXANDER: I wasn’t claiming that. I was just telling you how long it had been.
PHIL (TO ME): Are you coming to the show on Sunday?
ME: Yes. I am seeing the Consignia show, then seeing Matt Price & Martha McBrier’s storytelling show at the Bill Murray, half an hour after you finish.
PHIL: Oh, we had better clean up for them. I am doing Dinner For One again, within the Christmas show.
ME: Your shows have a tendency to over-run – by about 60 to 90 minutes.
Phil with part of the 12-page Christmas script
PHIL: Well, the script is only 12 pages long.
ALEXANDER: There are lots of bits in the script that say something happens and then, in brackets, THIS GOES ON FOR FIVE MINUTES.
PHIL (TO ME): So, although you might slag us off for having a script, we are true to who we are.
ME: Your last show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year was a non-show, wasn’t it?
PHIL: Yeah. I had to go for a job interview.
ME: It was a gig with no performers but with an audience.
PHIL: Yeah. We can still get people in without us being there. We are making the system work for us.
ME: Well, it is a way to avoid losing money in Edinburgh. You get an audience for your show but you are not there, so it doesn’t cost you anything and you can’t lose money. It’s a win.
PHIL: It is a win.
ALEXANDER (TO PHIL): You should say who else is in the show.
ME: Who else is in the show?
PHIL: Seán Morley.
ME: Again? The Seán Morley Twins?
PHIL: Ben Target, Euan Blair, Adam Larter, Nathan Willcock, of course. Lottie Bowater. Helen Duff. She’s very good. Have you seen her?
ME: I saw her at Juliette Burton’s boyfriend’s birthday. She wasn’t performing. She was eating. But she ate very well.
PHIL: Cassie Atkinson is in it. We’ve got half the comedy scene.
ALEXANDER: The crème de la crème.
ME: You are going to have no-one in the audience. They will all be on stage.
PHIL: That’s the plan. But tickets are selling. Tickets have sold.
ME: So Adam Larter is in your Christmas show?
PHIL: Yes. He is directing it. We have three different directors.
ALEXANDER: Andy Barr is the director…
PHIL: …in Consignia.
ME (TO PHIL): Are you a director?”
ALEXANDER (TO PHIL): Well, you are the main driving force behind all of this.
PHIL: I am the project manager of it. We basically have a show about neo-liberalism which mirrors neo-liberalism, because it has lots of competing… eh… sort of things… going on within the actual show.
ME: Structured.
PHIL: Structured.
ME: So it has 12 pages with three directors.
PHIL: Joz can be in it if he wants.
(JOZ NORRIS WAS SITTING ACROSS THE ROOM)
JOZ: I’ll be there.
PHIL: We have to have some punters in the audience.
ME: I’ll be there.
JOZ: I could play a hat stand.
PHIL: Who else is in it? There’s Cassie Atkinson.
ME: Again?
PHIL: Seán Morley is in it.
ME: The Seán Morley Triplets and the Cassie Atkinson Twins?
PHIL: Mark Dean Quinn’s in it. Alwin Solanky. Michael Brunström is in it. He is playing Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm. The show is basically about dead Marxists come to save Christmas from neo-liberalism. That’s the basic thrust of it.
Phil with one of the Karl Marx Twins (Photo by Adam Larter)
ME: And this is why you went to Highgate Cemetary yesterday? To see Karl Marx’s grave?
ALEXANDER: There are two Karl Marx graves there.
ME: What? Like all the people in your show? There are two of them?
PHIL: Seán Morley is in the show.
ME: So have they divided him up?
PHIL: Seán Morley?
ME: Karl Marx. Are there two graves in different places?
PHIL: Yes there are. They’ve got the original grave, when he wasn’t famous. And then, in the 1950s, the Communist Party of Great Britain got some money together and made a bigger thing for him.
ME: Ah.
PHIL: Jeremy Beadle is in the show. George Michael is in the show. And Kat Bond. She is also in the new the new WeBuyAnyCar.com advert. She’s in the advert with Mark Silcox about building a statue to Philip Schofield.
ME: You are joking.
PHIL: No. Surrealism has taken over. It’s gone mainstream.
ME: So, this show on Sunday at the Bill Murray. You told me it’s about neo-liberalism. What on earth is that?
Phil performing at Depresstival last Sunday
PHIL: Privatise everything. Privatise the whole lot. That’s what neo-liberalism is about
ME: The whole lot of what?
PHIL: Eh… Jobs.
ME: Jobs ARE privatised, aren’t they? Unless they’re public sector jobs?
PHIL: Well, I dunno, I mean, it’s dismantling of the state.
(AT THIS POINT, COMIC ALEXANDER BENNETT ARRIVED)
ME (TO ALEXANDER): Your scarf only starts halfway up.
PHIL: It’s the Euan Blair way.
ME (TO PHIL): Alexander is going to play Tony Blair’s son on Sunday?
PHIL: Yeah.
ME (TO PHIL): You went to Highgate Cemetery yesterday. Why?
PHIL: To look at dead Marxists.
ME: So neo-liberalism is privatising everything?
PHIL: Yes. There’s lots of job insecurity. There are competing Santas because Santa is dead.
ME: It is a Christmas show?
PHIL: Yes.
ME: Did I know this?
PHIL: I don’t know. It’s a Christmas show about neo-liberalism. Santa is dead and Euan Blair has made sure there’s lots of competing Santas.
ME: So who is performing in this show?
PHIL: Consignia.
ME: Consignia changes occasionally. Is Andy Barr in it?
PHIL: Yes.
ME: But Alexander is not in Consignia.
PHIL: Yes he is. Everyone is in Consignia. You are in Consignia. The whole world is in Consignia.
ME: Could we privatise a percentage of them?
PHIL: That is what the show is about – About fighting back against that.
ME: You said it was about privatising things.
PHIL: No. And it’s coming together quite nicely.
ME: You mean it is organised? Well, that is no use. Consignia has a style to maintain. I was slightly worried you had sold out when I read on social media the word ‘script’…
PHIL: There is always a script. But it is just a guide.
ME: It was unsettling when I saw that Edinburgh show where you did it twice and the second time was pretty much the same as the first time. I thought: “There surely can’t be a script!”
PHIL: Exactly. That is how it is. A script is a prompt. It’s not something you have to religiously stick to.
ME: Like Christmas?… So, this Christmas show on Sunday, is it going to be in Edinburgh next August?
PHIL: No. It’s a special show with lots of our friends in it.
ME: Oh dear. Such as?
PHIL: Seán Morley. It’s all the talent.
ME: I have gone off the idea now. It’s the word “talent”.
PHIL: It’s gonna be a spectacle.
ALEXANDER: It’s all good people, but they’ve not abandoned what Consignia is.
ME: What is Consignia?
ALEXANDER: Phil.
ME (TO PHIL): Are you going to take your clothes off in it?”
PHIL: I’ve reined that in now. I think the way to go is to put more clothes on.
ME: I am rapidly going off this show. It has a script and you are not going to get your kit off.
ALEXANDER: I haven’t had a drink since yesterday morning.
ME: That’s hardly giving up drink…
ALEXANDER: I wasn’t claiming that. I was just telling you how long it had been.
PHIL (TO ME): Are you coming to the show on Sunday?
ME: Yes. I am seeing the Consignia show, then seeing Matt Price & Martha McBrier’s storytelling show at the Bill Murray, half an hour after you finish.
PHIL: Oh, we had better clean up for them. I am doing Dinner For One again, within the Christmas show.
ME: Your shows have a tendency to over-run – by about 60 to 90 minutes.
Phil with part of the 12-page Christmas script
PHIL: Well, the script is only 12 pages long.
ALEXANDER: There are lots of bits in the script that say something happens and then, in brackets, THIS GOES ON FOR FIVE MINUTES.
PHIL (TO ME): So, although you might slag us off for having a script, we are true to who we are.
ME: Your last show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year was a non-show, wasn’t it?
PHIL: Yeah. I had to go for a job interview.
ME: It was a gig with no performers but with an audience.
PHIL: Yeah. We can still get people in without us being there. We are making the system work for us.
ME: Well, it is a way to avoid losing money in Edinburgh. You get an audience for your show but you are not there, so it doesn’t cost you anything and you can’t lose money. It’s a win.
PHIL: It is a win.
ALEXANDER (TO PHIL): You should say who else is in the show.
ME: Who else is in the show?
PHIL: Seán Morley.
ME: Again? The Seán Morley Twins?
PHIL: Ben Target, Euan Blair, Adam Larter, Nathan Willcock, of course. Lottie Bowater. Helen Duff. She’s very good. Have you seen her?
ME: I saw her at Juliette Burton’s boyfriend’s birthday. She wasn’t performing. She was eating. But she ate very well.
PHIL: Cassie Atkinson is in it. We’ve got half the comedy scene.
ALEXANDER: The crème de la crème.
ME: You are going to have no-one in the audience. They will all be on stage.
PHIL: That’s the plan. But tickets are selling. Tickets have sold.
ME: So Adam Larter is in your Christmas show?
PHIL: Yes. He is directing it. We have three different directors.
ALEXANDER: Andy Barr is the director…
PHIL: …in Consignia.
ME (TO PHIL): Are you a director?”
ALEXANDER (TO PHIL): Well, you are the main driving force behind all of this.
PHIL: I am the project manager of it. We basically have a show about neo-liberalism which mirrors neo-liberalism, because it has lots of competing… eh… sort of things… going on within the actual show.
ME: Structured.
PHIL: Structured.
ME: So it has 12 pages with three directors.
PHIL: Joz can be in it if he wants.
(JOZ NORRIS WAS SITTING ACROSS THE ROOM)
JOZ: I’ll be there.
PHIL: We have to have some punters in the audience.
ME: I’ll be there.
JOZ: I could play a hat stand.
PHIL: Who else is in it? There’s Cassie Atkinson.
ME: Again?
PHIL: Seán Morley is in it.
ME: The Seán Morley Triplets and the Cassie Atkinson Twins?
PHIL: Mark Dean Quinn’s in it. Alwin Solanky. Michael Brunström is in it. He is playing Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm. The show is basically about dead Marxists come to save Christmas from neo-liberalism. That’s the basic thrust of it.
Phil with one of the Karl Marx Twins (Photo by Adam Larter)
ME: And this is why you went to Highgate Cemetary yesterday? To see Karl Marx’s grave?
ALEXANDER: There are two Karl Marx graves there.
ME: What? Like all the people in your show? There are two of them?
PHIL: Seán Morley is in the show.
ME: So have they divided him up?
PHIL: Seán Morley?
ME: Karl Marx. Are there two graves in different places?
PHIL: Yes there are. They’ve got the original grave, when he wasn’t famous. And then, in the 1950s, the Communist Party of Great Britain got some money together and made a bigger thing for him.
ME: Ah.
PHIL: Jeremy Beadle is in the show. George Michael is in the show. And Kat Bond. She is also in the new the new WeBuyAnyCar.com advert. She’s in the advert with Mark Silcox about building a statue to Philip Schofield.
ME: You are joking.
PHIL: No. Surrealism has taken over. It’s gone mainstream.
It has been a bad Fringe for me in the sense that, so far, I have not seen a truly terrible show. Where have all the shit shows gone?
I started today with Katharine Ferns in Stitches – about domestic abuse. Well, it starts off about domestic abuse and then gets more and more horrific. It is a pitch perfect performance and a beautifully-written, perfectly-paced comedy script.
Absolutely wonderfully done. A perfect Fringe show. Laughs. Tears. Jaw-dropping. It deserves a (formerly-known-as) Perrier Award but the (formerly-known-as) Perrier Awards are possibly in terminal decline.
Then there was Giants’ sketch comedy show For an Hour with Ian Hislop’s son Will Hislop and his friend-since-childhood Barney Fishwick. The former is in the unenviable position of facing 3-4 years of being called “Ian Hislop’s son” and the latter is facing 2-3 years of being called “the other one”. Nothing can be done about this. That’s life. As Oscar Wilde did not say, the only thing worse than being labelled is not being noticed.
(L-R) Will Hislop succeed? Yes he will, with Barney Fishwick
That’s the downside. The upside is that they are supremely self-confident, highly professional and write and perform impeccably. There is a humdinger of a ‘door’ gag and a very clever ‘Israeli’ reference which are worth the price of admission on their own. And they will have their own TV series within 3-6 years tops. Probably in some BBC2 double-billing with Ruby Wax’s equally well-connected daughter duo Siblings.
The next two shows I saw were Ashley Storrie’s and then Janey Godley’s.
Janey is probably the most talented creative all-rounder I have ever met. Her autobiography Handstands in the Dark was a bestseller in Scotland and England; she had a column in The Scotsman; her shows are masterclasses in audience control and performance; and this year’s Fringe show was preceded by a two-day shoot in a part specially-written for her in an upcoming Julie Walters feature film. If she did not live in Glasgow, she would be a major star.
When you know Ashley is her daughter, you can spot the inherited performance skills, though their on-stage personas and schtick are different. I saw their shows (in different venues) consecutively and it was fascinating to see how they dealt with overlap material (particularly the recent death of Janey’s father) differently.
Janey’s act mentioned the time she and I were sitting in her living room in Glasgow and an entire building blew up across the road.
Consignia – Phil Jarvis (left) & Nathan Willcock
Which brings me to Consignia’s intentionally shambolic late-night Panopticon show.
This is one show which should create a sense of nervous anticipation in any audience and where Malcolm Hardee’s intro “Could be good; could be shit” resonates. And, in the case of Consignia, he might have added: “Good and shit could be the same thing here. Fuck it.”
This is the traditional spirit of the Edinburgh Fringe.
I had very little (possibly no) idea what was going on during the show but neo-Dadaism might be the best description. I was dragged out of the audience, a pink tutu put on my head to represent a bride’s veil and I was told to wave my hand while repetitive music played for I guess around 4-7 minutes. Might have been 47 minutes. Meanwhile, Nathan Willcock stood with (what I think was) a fake TV screen on his upper body and Mark Dean Quinn repeatedly hit Phil Jarvis in the face with a mop while he (Phil) yelled out “No!”.
Eventually, in its repetitiveness, this became quite reassuringly mesmerising and I felt sadly empty when it ended.
I think Stockholm Syndrome may have kicked in.
Either that or my green tea was spiked with some hallucinogenic substance.
On my short walk home, I passed three people sitting chatting and drinking on the edge of a building.
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:
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: 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?
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.
When you know Ashley is her daughter, you can spot the inherited performance skills, though their on-stage personas and schtick are different. I saw their shows (in different venues) consecutively and it was fascinating to see how they dealt with overlap material (particularly the recent death of Janey’s father) differently.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 