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…)
Fringe performers Phil Jarvis and Consignia have occasionally turned up in this blog. I think you might call them – eh – erm – unconventional, even by Fringe comedy standards. In 2016, they won an Alternative New Comedian of the Year award.
I once attended one of their late shows in Edinburgh at around 1.00am in the morning. When it ended after an hour, they decided they would immediately repeat it in its entirety, which they did. It ended around 3.00am.
At the Edinburgh Fringe last year, they staged as the final show in their run, one in which they did not turn up, because they were on a train back to London. I think they may have publicised the fact they would not be there. Maybe they didn’t. No-one knows if any audience turned up.
Consignia are named after the failed re-branding of the UK Post Office in 2001-2002 – which BBC News at the time describedas “The most ruinous decision since the biblical scam that saw Esau swap his birthright for a bowl of stew.”
That referred to the Post Office’s choice of name, not the comedy group who have not yet, as far as I know, featured on BBC News, although they may have appeared on Crimewatch.
A random promotion image for Consignia’s Lemondale show featured a hole in the road
This year, Consignia were, again, performing a run of shows – titled Lemondale – at the Edinburgh Fringe and Phil Jarvis revealed to me that their marketing strategy, ever original, was: “We are not promoting the run until it’s finished.”
That did not altogether happen. See below..
Consignia’s membership varies much like the vivid events in a surreal dream. This year, in theory, they were: Andy Barr, Alexander Bennett, Phil Jarvis, Sean Morley, Mark Dean Quinn, Alwin Solanky and Nathan Willcock.
They billed their show as: “about potholes, lemons and lost utopian ideals. A late night/early morning fever dream for fans of concrete.”
These hour-long daily shows started at 1.45am in the morning.
A couple of days ago, lamenting the lack of any reviews, Phil Jarvis said he would write his own review of the show. I suggested he write about the overall Fringe experience.
Now he has done. Mea culpa.
Phil, promoting the movie Kes in Lemondale
Our show this year was called Lemondale. We were in the Banshee Labryrinth’s Cinema Room. It was what is called a ‘ghost show’: a show that is not listed in the main Fringe guide. We did not make any flyers or posters this year, so relied on people just turning up, possibly thinking that a film was on. The Banshee Labryrinth had great footfall through the night and had shows running throughout the evening, so people (we hoped) would pop in after seeing the shows before us.
By July, I had co-written two full shows that had both been canned as Consignia member Nathan Willcock sensibly took up the offer of paid work instead of going to Edinburgh.
Originally, the show was going to be about the history of a fictional New Town told by a monorail that falls into eventual decline.
But Mark Dean Quinn came to visit me before Fringe and we chatted over some ideas. In effect, Mark became the director of Lemondale.
I had spent about three hours in a queue at Stansted Airport for a Ryanair flight and that became the starting point –how you cope with the boredom of waiting in an airport.
The day of the only preview we did in London, Mark delivered a two page script that was the backbone to the show.
Consignia’s Lemondale – Don’t ask who or why
I started trolling a bit too much on Facebook’s Edinburgh Fringe Performers’ Forum. Eventually, I got myself banned from the forum. So I decided to set up my own Facebook forum with the same name. It would prove quite handy.
I get quite bored of having to repeat the same show each night, so we started to add things.
For example, Alwin Solanky, an integral member of Consignia, failed to turn up on time for the first show. So we added the fact Alwin hadn’t turned up into the show. With Alwin in the room, we would get the audience to chant ‘Where is Alwin?”.
Eventually, Alwin would get to the stage, don a bird mask, and then be pelted with bread that had been handed out to the audience.
Sean Morley became a member of Consignia halfway through the run, so we decided to change the show more.
(An Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response is an experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine, creating ‘low-grade euphoria’.)
We started whispering and shushing the audience whenever they laughed and amplifying ourselves eating fruit and downing beer slowly.
Actor Danny Dyer made some comments
We also had a menu screen behind us: from the DVD Danny Dyer’s Football Foul-Ups. Every now and then, Danny Dyer would interject with some comment that would somehow seem fitting in the bread-filled mess.
No journalists seemed up for coming to the show so late at night.
So Nathan Willcock (made head of our shoestring PR) approached the online blog The Mumble who said he wanted £25 to come and review it. Nathan said we would try and fund the £25 after the show but The Mumble didn’t seem happy with that idea and said he wouldn’t come. You can’t even buy a journalist these days!
We seemed to be getting about 20 to 25 people in every night for this 1.45am show.
The Edinburgh Fringe Forum provided an interesting opportunity when a presenter from BBC Radio Leeds asked if anyone from Yorkshire wanted to appear on his show.
Sean Morley lives in Sheffield, so he ended up delivering an ASMR interview on a lunch time show on BBC Radio Leeds.
Consigbnia’s final Lemondale show (Photo by Sean Morley)
I am not sure if this brought any curious people from Leeds to Edinburgh for a show at 1.45am but, when we brought the show back for a final time on the last Saturday of the Fringe, we had a packed room.
I have learnt that you do not need to go in the Fringe guide or even flyer to get people in to your show.
Oddly, the time of our show worked in our favour and the location of a great venue was probably what really made it work for us.
Also, having Nathan Willcock in control of our Social Media helped – with such gems as reTweeting the fact that the Consignia Twitter page is now blocked by poet Pam Ayers.
Next year’s Edinburgh Fringe show from Consignia is claimed to be entitled Welcome to Dungeness.
Next year – The Dungeness B nuclear power station in Kent
Dungeness is a piece of coastline in Kent with one working nuclear power station and one abandoned nuclear power station. The Guardianhas called Dungeness “the desert of England, though experts observe that, lacking both the dearth of water and the extreme differential in night and day temperatures, it fulfils none of the desert criteria.”
Phil Jarvis says that his next planned solo project is to create “a coffee table book on UK motorway service stations at night time”.
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.
I ended today soaked through with Irn Bru and rain.
The day started off like a normal Fringe day.
“Michael Brunström wants to borrow some of my compost,” performer Narin Oz told me, as I walked into Fringe Central. This made perfect sense at the time – a sign of how your brain soon gets affected by the Fringe.
Becky Fury stood in for Copstick. Same hair; no white streak. The front row of our overwhelming audience (it’s all comparative) included two women who had seen Lewis Schaffer’s show last night and had not liked it.
Martha McBrier – castigated by some for playing a didgeridoo – arrived with a small brown box.
Copstick arrived when the show was almost over, telling chilling tales of Alex Salmond singing.
Cultural appropriation for Martha McBrier to play the box?
Martha McBrier played the small brown box by blowing into it. She claimed it was a ‘box didgeridoo’.
It was unclear to both her and us if women were banned from playing it, as they are with linear didgeridoos.
We started discussing Lewis Schaffer again.
At this point, Lewis Schaffer phoned asking me to send him a picture of himself.
Then I was off to see Michael Brunström, Phil Jarvis and Alwin Solanky perform the legendary 20-minute routine Dinner For One in a small garden shed beside Bob Slayer’s Blundabus.
Dinner For One, recorded in English for German audiences in 1963 is extraordinarily famous in Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Faroe Islands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Africa and Australia. In fact, loads of places except the UK.
(Left-Right) Alwin Solanky, Phil Jarvis and Michael Brunström
Phil Jarvis introduced this shed-based production in German, then Dinner For One was performed in English with Phil as the butler, Michael Brunström in drag as the lady and Alwin Solanky as the tiger skin rug. The shed miraculously contained an audience of (I think) eight people, with more peering in through the open door.
Dinner For One: a cast over the top; an audience under threat
The spilling, throwing and spewing of Irn Bru – standing in for the original show’s alcoholic drinks – was extensive.
The result was that I was (with some pride) the only audience member left in the shed by the end.
I had taken the precaution of wearing a coat which I bought in Nuremberg and which, fortunately, has a liquid-proof hood.
This production of Dinner For One epitomised the spirit of the Fringe – people performing something for no logical reason whatsoever, ignoring financial recompense, audience numbers and any common sense.
You did, indeed, have to be there.
As did I at Nathan Cassidy’s one-off event The World’s Best MC Award Grand Final because I was booked to be one of the judges – well, THE judge, as it turned out.
At the Awards (L-R) Nick Helm, Rich Wilson, Nathan Cassidy and Sarah Callaghan (Photograph by Rat Pack Productions)
As it turned out, it was pretty much what it said on the label – six good comics doing 5-minute MC-style intros – each introducing the next – in an attempt to win an alleged £5,000 prize.
The comedians/MCs were Sarah Callaghan, Nick Helm, Joey Page, Mark Silcox, Chris Turner and Rich Wilson.
Unsurprisingly, in a shock twist, Nathan Cassidy won his own £5,000.
Very enjoyable, a real audience-pleaser, but I’m not convinced it’s a Cunning Stunt. The door money DID go to charity, though.
That is not up to me, though.
Fellow Malcolm Hardee judges Marissa Burgess, Bruce Dessau, Kate Copstick, Jay Richardson and Claire Smith all have equal says to me.
Talking of Malcolm Hardee – and who isn’t at the Fringe? – the wonderful 2011 Award winner Johnny Sorrow and Bob Blackman’s Tray have arrived in Edinburgh. I saw them tonight at The Newsroom, the small venue at the top of Leith Walk. From their energy, he/they could have been playing Radio City Music Hall.
THAT is how to play to an audience of one.
No audience problem for The Elvis Dead, though.
The Elvis Dead – Cultural event or niche pastiche?
It is probably the hottest and most talked-about show in Edinburgh.
In fact, the buzz around it started at the Leicester Comedy Festival back in February and has built to dizzying heights since. It is superbly well put together together and performed.
But I am not the target audience.
It reminded me of my experience over a week ago when I saw Mother’s Ruin – about gin – with an audience fully into the subject. The Elvis Dead is a musical re-telling of the movie Evil Dead II through pastiches of Elvis Presley songs.
My problem is that I have not seen Evil Dead II; I am not a particular fan of Elvis Presley; and singalong, clapalong-stompalong-whoopalong, crowd-bonding events are not my thing. Mea culpa.
The audience LOVED it. The only-begetter of this crowd-pleasing triumph, Rob Kemp, is getting full houses every night. But for me, the elevator pitch is that it is Jollyboat rabble-rousing (I like Jollyboat) meets Harriet Braine niche pastiche (I admire Harriet Braine).
Braine and brawn vie for niche pastiche attention
Harriet Braine performs superb pastiche songs about fine art and artists – very very clever songs about Magritte, Cezanne, Van Gogh, whatever whoever. But I don’t know the subject well enough to fully appreciate them. So the full effect floats or zooms over my head, as with The Elvis Dead.
Rob Kemp says he is returning to Edinburgh next year with a Beetlejuice show.
I HAVE seen Beetlejuice.
But I am not a massive fan.
On the other hand… if we were talking about a musical version of The Wild Bunch… I would be queuing-up like the Dead Elvis fans are.
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.
(L-R) Andy Barr, Nathan Willcock and Phil Jarvis at the Soho Theatre Bar yesterday with Jeremy Spake and Baby Spice.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a message from comedy performer Phil Jarvis saying:
Hi John. Is there any chance myself and Andy Barr can plug a few odd shows we have lined up to you? We can bring Creme Eggs.
When I arrived at Soho Theatre yesterday, there were three of them – people, not eggs – Nathan Willcock was a late addition – and they gave me a scanned photograph of Baby Spice holding a pizza plus a photo of a man with a slight beard.
“Who is that?” I asked Phil Jarvis.
“Nathan Willcock,” replied Phil Jarvis.
“No,” I said. “The man in the photo.”
“That is Jeremy Spake,” Phil told me. “From the 1990s TV reality show Airport.”
“And your show is…?” I asked.
“We’ve got a show called Kafka or Magaluf.”
“What is it about?”
I had thought it was a relatively simple question.
But there was a long, long pause.
Eventually, Andy came up with: “Malcolm Julian Swan is attempting to run a nightclub… erm…” There was another long pause. “But he is also interested in Marxist theatre.” He looked at Phil for confirmation.
Phil returned his look, slightly surprised.
Malcolm Julian Swan is an on-stage alter ego of Phil.
“We have,” Phil told me, “got some jungle music as an intro. And we’ve got a DJ in the show as well.”
“A proper DJ?” I asked.
“A proper DJ, yeah,” he said.
“Who wears it?” I asked.
Malcolm Julian Swan aka Phil Jarvis in a previous incarnation
Phil ignored me. “His name is Callum Vaughan. He lets us crash in his spare room… And we’ve got some Velcro. That’s pretty much it… It’s us trying to be Marxist theatre, Brechtian types. Malcolm Julian Swan – the character I made up – is quite a pretentious, avant-garde guy who lives in Basingstoke – He is sort-of based on myself.”
“You live in Basingstoke?” I asked. “I am terribly sorry.”
“It has its perks,” he told me.
“Does,” I asked, “a cockroach appear in the show at any point?”
“We’ve got some bits where we put Velcro on people. That’s about as close as we get to a cockroach. I was going to re-read Kafka’s Metamorphosis before doing this, but that never worked out…”
“What was the last book you did read?” I asked.
“It was a book by Jeremy Spake about working in an airport.”
“And where is Kafka or Magaluf going to be performed?” I asked.
I had thought it was a relatively simple question.
Phil looked at Andy.
“Where is it happening?” he asked.
There was a pause.
No-one answered.
Then someone said: “The Criterion Free House at Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival this Saturday.”
Cockroaches or Velcro? Kafka or Magaluf? Eh? Who knows?
“Are you an ongoing threesome?” I asked.
“I’m not in Kafka or Magaluf,” Nathan told me.
“If we take it to the Edinburgh Fringe,” Phil told me, “he has said he will be in it.”
“Are you definitely going to take it to Edinburgh?” I asked.
“Might do,” Phil said, “but the thing we are definitely taking to the Fringe is The Abridged Dapper 11-Hour Monochrome Dream Show.”
“Dapper?” I asked.
“We are reclaiming the word Dapper,” Phil told me.
“Because he’s a cunt. So it’s worth claiming it back cos it’s a tarnished word.”
“How long does your 11-hour show last?” I asked.
“One hour,” said Andy. “Originally, we were going to do it as 11 hours, but it’s abridged. If you know anywhere that will let us do it for 11 hours, we will do that.”
“It would be a free show?” I asked.
“Oh,” laughed Phil. “Oh yes. No-one will want to pay money to come and see it!”
“Did you,” I asked, “flyer for your Edinburgh Fringe show last year?”
“I gave out some IKEA instructions for assembling furniture,” said Phil, “and wrote my phone number down on it and said Come… About 15 people came! We did two days.”
“The first day,” said Andy, “we got about five people in.”
“But that,” I reminded him, “is around the average audience size at the Edinburgh Fringe.”
“We could,” mused Phil, “do the full 11-hour show on the Megabus from John O’Groats to Edinburgh.”
The back end of a Megabus aka possible venue
Last year, Phil came up with an idea for an Edinburgh Fringe show in which comedians would rotate getting on the Megabus for a month and videoing a live feed onto Skype which would be projected in to a room in Edinburgh. Sadly it came to naught.
“This new show,” said Phil, “The Abridged Dapper 11-Hour Monochrome Dream Show… It was thought-up in Michael Brunström’s garden… at a barbecue. We were all sitting round talking and it came out of that.”
“I went to the toilet,” explained Andy, “and, when I came back, they had conceived a Fringe show.”
“Was it a long visit to the toilet?” I asked.
“Well,” Andy told me, “it was fairly… was fairly… Well, I was checking the Tweets, you know?”
“So Andy comes back,”explained Phil, “and it ends up Andy was the only one who was in the show. Everyone else who originally agreed to be in it has pulled out.”
“They’ve all distanced themselves from it,” said Nathan.
“What is it about?” I asked.
There was a short pause.
Phil Jarvis at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015
“It was originally going to be about the Apocalypse,” said Phil, “but now it’s just dreams – sketches about the Apocalypse. Well, it’s not sketches. it’s dreams.”
“The key difference being,” said Nathan, “that there is absolutely zero narrative thrust to any of the dreams.”
“We don’t really know what it’s going to be” explained Phil. “The key thing is that something is going to happen at a preview in London on the 24th of March. It’s a happening. That’s what we do. It’s happening. A happening. It’s a dream happening.”
Andy added: “We just hope Phil’s gonna keep his clothes on this time.”
“I will be trying to keep them on,” said Phil.
“Oh,” I said.
“The other thing we want to plug,” Phil continued, “is that Andy’s starting a new comedy night on 3rd March called The Apocalypse Survivors’ Club.”
“The idea,” explained Andy, “is that an Apocalypse has happened and all culture has been wiped from the face of the earth, aside from a few bits and pieces.”
“Where is this?” I asked.
“Dalston,” replied Andy.
“At the Ophelia,” said Phil.
“How do you spell that?” I asked. He told me. “Just checking,” I told him.
“We will,” Andy continued, “have some acts on trying to re-build culture after the Apocalypse.”
(Foreground) Cassie Atkinson keen to spend an evening with Andy Barr and other Apocalypse Survivors’ Club members
“Acts?” I asked.
“The first night,” said Andy, “has Alexander Bennett, Michael Brunström, Cassie Atkinson, Fern Brady and a poet called Michael Clarke. It’s just a new material night. We can use it as a testing ground for stuff we might put in later shows and Phil is my assistant.”
“We were thinking,” said Nathan, “of starting the first show with Donald Trump causing the Apocalypse and then we’re all around the camp fire and link the sketches through that. But Andy immediately said: That’s too much structure.”
“I am more worried,” I said, “by the phrase ‘we’re all around the camp fire’…”
“It is good to keep an element of fear,” said Phil.
“We could get a laptop of a burning fire…” mused Nathan.
“And,” said Andy, “just burn the laptop.”
“That’s too logical,” said Nathan.
When I left, Phil gave me part of the script for Kafka or Magaluf. It starts:
Sam and Andy walk out to the audience and hand out quotes from Karl Marx, Groucho Marx and Harpo Marx…
As a result, she told me, the audiences for her show As Funny As Cancer have changed for the better. Instead of (my phrase) drunken passing Scots, she is now getting more women interested in the actual subject of her show. The Guardian piece was headlined: Fake breasts, ping-pong balls and tears in a comic exploration of cancer.
We will return to this morning at the end of this blog.
Tom Binns’ characters need no help from me after that review
Yesterday, I went to see Tom Binns. He had just got a 5-star review from Kate Copstick in The Scotsman for his Club Sets show – hardly surprising as it showcases his three characters and himself and he does a genuine psychic trick, a card trick, ventriloquism and a plethora of sharp verbal and musical jokes.
Then I went to the Italian Cultural Institute where they were showcasing Italian-related acts and shows linked by comic Luca Cupani who surprised me – I have no idea why – by being a very very good MC.
Amy Howerska – the word of mouth will deafen squirrels
Then Amy Howerska – Sasspot – she really DID grow up in a family of trained killers – had her room so packed to the rafters with appreciative punters (on a day when, traditionally, audiences drop off) that she needs no publicity from me and the word-of-mouth on her energetic show will be so loud it will deafen squirrels at 200 yards.
Coming down the Gilded Balloon’s spiral stairs after seeing Amy’s show, I bumped into Charmian Hughes whose daily show When Comedy Was Alternative (The Laughs and Loves of a She-Comic) actually names names, including ex-boyfriend Dave Thompson (Tinky Winky in TV’s Teletubbies).
Charmian Hughes knew how to get booked
“I’m doing two of Dave’s jokes,” she told me, “to portray his part in my life. He said I could do it only if I told his jokes right, but I can get very muddled up. So he’s coming up from Brighton next week and he will have a walk-on part in my show next Tuesday or Wednesday, when he will do his own two jokes.”
“When did you two meet?” I asked.
“When he ran a show which included an open spot. My open spot went really badly and I thought: How can I get another booking? I know! I’ll get off with him, become his girlfriend and then emotionally blackmail him throughout the relationship so he has to give me gigs… And it worked!”
Yesterday morning, Adrienne had posted on her Facebook page:
Adrienne Truscott is not a one-trick pony
In the States they say that, if a pigeon shits on you, it’s good luck.
I went out for coffee at the corner and came upon a 2-star review of my not-yet-ready-for-prime-time second show by a very thoughtful and fair writer.
I agreed with his observations heartily and went directly home to continue working on it and, in my lounge room, came upon 2 trapped pigeons! One for each star?!! They were flying everywhere and nowhere, mayhem back and forth, all around me, smashing into the windows, smashing into the walls, swooping past my head, feathers and wings everywhere.
They shat everywhere!!
Neither shat on me. Not one ounce. 2 terrified trapped pigeons and one shit-free me!
I am not yet an experienced stand-up comedian but I have a hearty sense of humor. I’ve cleaned up the shit. I’ve made my show better. I love it now and can’t wait for tonight.
She was still shit-free last night and the show was as she hoped.
Phil Jarvis’ Hokum. Don’t ask… Just don’t ask
The last show I saw yesterday was Malcolm Julian Swan Presents Hokum at the Freestival’s new venue in the New Waverley Arches. The repeated cry was: This is not a show. It’s an album!” And, indeed, it was not really a show, more a time trip to some deranged 1967 Happening which involved kazoos, pipes, much banging and chanting of random phrases like Human Detritus! plusa bit of nudity, projected computer screens, bits of cardboard and the repetition of phrases through a loud-hailer. Oh – and Phil Jarvis, whose admirably shambolic show it really was.
Hokum (if it really was called that) is highly recommended as a one-off which was really a two-off (it was only on for two days) but you can’t see it – last night was the final show.
So back – or maybe forward – to this morning.
This morning, comic actress Jo Burke was flying up to Edinburgh for her show iScream, which starts on Sunday.
Texts and e-mails flew, because she has also written a book iScream – now available – to go with the show.
Jo Burke with one of her physical books
“The show is new,” she told me, “but I wrote the book about ten years ago – It was a book about internet dating and a year in my life with a brief history of me to set it up. At that time, it was called From Strangers with Love – like in the subject heading of an e-mail.
“This year’s Fringe stage show was called iScream and I did a preview in London and someone – well, you, John – told me it should be more about me. So I took some stuff out that was not about me and thought: What shall I put in to fill the gaps that’s about me? And then I realised: Y’know what? I already have a whole book of stuff that is ‘me’ and, when I looked at it again, I found two little things from the book which I added to the stage show and I then thought: This is a perfect opportunity to release the book as well. So the book is now called iScream too.”
“Did you re-write bits?”
“No. It was written ten years ago and now I am a completely different person to the one who wrote the book.”
“So are the book and the stage show about the same thing?”
“No,” replied Jo. “The book is maybe only under ten minutes of the hour-long show, which is the abridged version of me. The stage show is very personal to me and it does end on what could be considered a downbeat note, but it’s actually not; it’s a very positive note. Like everyone else, you trolley through the shit and come out the best you can.”
Jo Burke’s show poster, by Steve Ullathorne
“You must be happy the book is out,” I said.
“It is doing extremely well and has been as high Number 17 on Amazon in Comedian Biographies. But I’m actually terrified people will read it and never speak to me again – I have been ridiculously honest. Friends read early drafts of it and told me to take things out and I refused. I’m already writing the second book.”
“The story continues?”
“No. I’m easily bored. I like to try my hand at different things.”
“With luck, money might roll in,” I said.
Jo – butterflies and Prosecco at City Airport
“If money was the prime motivator,” said Jo. “I wouldn’t have done all the things I’ve done in the last ten years. Unfortunately, money doesn’t motivate me; but doing stuff I can feel proud of or which makes other people happy or think… I enjoy that. Just a living. I’d just like to make a living out of it.
“If you’re money-motivated, you gravitate towards the City and almost no-one I know is a City suit person. I don’t want to meet City suit people. I don’t like them. They lost everyone’s money and are still rich and it makes me sad.”
“Where are you now?”
“Currently at London City Airport awaiting lift off. I have butterflies and Prosecco…”
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 